Or  J 


IAN 


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STORIES   OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 


BOOKS  BY  ANTON  TCHEKOFF 

PUBLISHED  BY  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


RUSSIAN  SILHOUETTES.     12mo     .     net  $1.35 
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STORIES 
OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 


BY 

ANTON  TCHEKOFF 


TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  RUSSIAN  BT 

MARIAN  FELL 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
IMP 


COPYRIGHT,  1914.  BT 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  May.  1914 


CONTENTS 


MM 

OVERSEASONED 9 

THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  EASTER 10 

AT  HOME 26 

CHAMPAGNE 41 

THE  MALEFACTOR 60 

MURDER  WILL  OUT 56 

THE  TROUSSEAU .63 

THE  DECORATION 71 

THE  MAN  IN  A  CASE 76 

LITTLE  JACK 97 

DREAMS 104 

THE  DEATH  OF  AN  OFFICIAL 118 

AGATHA 123 

THE  BEGGAR 139 

CHILDREN 148 

THE  TROUBLESOME  GUEST 157 

Nor  WANTED 167 

THE  ROBBERS 177 

LEAN  AND  FAT                                                                 .        .  202 


vi  CONTENTS 

PACK 

ON  THE  WAT 206 

THE  HEAD  GARDENEB'S  TALE  .  232 

HUSH! 240 

WITHOUT  A  TITLE 245 

IN  THE  RAVINE  .  .252 


STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 


STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 
OVERSEASONED 

ON  arriving  at  Deadville  Station,  Gleb  Smirnoff, 
the  surveyor,  found  that  the  farm  to  which 
his  business  called  him  still  lay  some  thirty  or  forty 
miles  farther  on.  If  the  driver  should  be  sober  and 
the  horses  could  stand  up,  the  distance  would  be  less 
than  thirty  miles;  with  a  fuddled  driver  and  old  skates 
for  horses,  it  might  amount  to  fifty. 

"Will  you  tell  me,  please,  where  I  can  get  some 
post-horses?"  asked  the  surveyor  of  the  station-master. 

"What?  Post-horses?  You  won't  find  even  a 
stray  dog  within  a  hundred  miles  of  here,  let  alone 
post-horses!  Where  do  you  want  to  go?" 

"To  Devkino,  General  Hohotoff's  farm." 

"Well,"  yawned  the  station-master,  "go  round  be- 
hind the  station;  there  are  some  peasants  there  that 
sometimes  take  passengers." 

The  surveyor  sighed  and  betook  himself  wearily  to 
the  back  of  the  station.  There,  after  a  long  search 
and  much  disputing  and  agitating,  he  at  last  secured 
a  huge,  lusty  peasant,  surly,  pock-marked,  wearing  a 
ragged  coat  of  grey  cloth  and  straw  shoes. 


4  STORIES   OF   RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"What  a  devil  of  a  wagon  you  have!"  grumbled  the 
surveyor,  climbing  in.  "I  can't  tell  which  is  the  front 
and  which  is  the  back." 

"Can't  you?  The  horse's  tail  is  in  front  and  where 
your  honour  sits  is  the  back." 

The  pony  was  young  but  gaunt,  with  sprawling  legs 
and  ragged  ears.  When  the  driver  stood  up  and  beat 
it  with  his  rope  whip,  it  only  shook  its  head;  when  he 
rated  it  soundly  and  beat  it  a  second  time  the  wagon 
groaned  and  shuddered  as  if  in  a  fever;  at  the  third 
stroke  the  wagon  rocked,  and  at  the  fourth,  moved 
slowly  away. 

"Will  it  be  like  this  all  the  way?"  asked  the  sur- 
veyor, violently  shaken  and  wondering  at  the  ability 
of  Russian  drivers  for  combining  the  gentle  crawl  of  a 
tortoise  with  the  most  soul-racking  bumping. 

"We'll  get  there,"  the  driver  soothed  him.  "The 
little  mare  is  young  and  spry.  Only  let  her  once  get 
started  and  there  is  no  stopping  her.  Get  up,  you 
devil!" 

They  left  the  station  at  dusk.  To  the  right  stretched 
a  cold,  dark  plain  so  boundless  and  vast  that  if  you 
crossed  it  no  doubt  you  would  come  to  the  Other 
End  of  Nowhere.  The  cold  autumn  sunset  burnt  out 
slowly  where  the  edge  of  it  melted  into  the  sky.  To 
the  left,  in  the  fading  light,  some  little  mounds  rose  up 
that  might  have  been  either  trees  or  last  year's  hay- 
stacks. The  surveyor  could  not  see  what  lay  ahead, 
for  here  the  whole  landscape  was  blotted  out  by  the 


OVERSEASONED  5 

broad,  clumsy  back  of  the  driver.  The  air  was  still, 
but  frosty  and  cold. 

"What  desolation!"  thought  the  surveyor,  trying  to 
cover  his  ears  with  his  coat  collar;  "not  a  hut  nor  a 
house!  If  we  were  beset  and  robbed  here  not  a  soul 
would  know  it,  not  if  we  were  to  fire  cannons.  And 
that  driver  isn't  trustworthy.  What  a  devil  of  a  back 
he  has!  It  is  as  much  as  a  man's  life  is  worth  even  to 
touch  a  child  of  nature  like  that  with  his  forefinger! 
He  has  an  ill-looking  snout,  like  a  wild  animal.  Look 
here,  friend,"  asked  the  surveyor,. "what's  your  name?" 

"My  name?     Klim." 

"Well,  Klim,  how  is  it  about  here?  Not  dangerous? 
No  one  plays  any  pranks,  do  they?" 

"Oh,  Lord  preserve  us,  no!  Who  would  there  be 
to  play  pranks?" 

"That's  right.  But,  in  any  case,  I  have  three  re- 
volvers here" — the  surveyor  lied — "and,  you  know,  it's 
a  bad  plan  to  joke  with  a  revolver.  One  revolver  is  a 
match  for  ten  robbers." 

Night  fell.  Suddenly  the  wagon  creaked,  groaned, 
trembled,  and  turned  to  the  left,  as  if  against  its  will. 

"Where  is  he  taking  me  now?"  thought  the  surveyor, 
"  He  was  going  straight  ahead,  and  now  he  has  suddenly 
turned  to  the  left.  I  am  afraid  the  scoundrel  is  carry- 
ing me  off  to  some  lonely  thicket — and — and — things 
have  been  known  to  happen.  Listen!"  he  said  to  the 
driver,  "so  you  say  there  is  no  danger  here?  Well, 
that's  a  pity.  I  love  a  good  fight  with  robbers.  I  am 


6  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

small  and  sickly  to  look  at,  but  I  have  the  strength  of 
an  ox.  Three  robbers  attacked  me  once,  and  what 
do  you  think?  I  shook  one  of  them  so  that — well,  it 
killed  him.  The  other  two  I  had  sent  to  hard  labour 
in  Siberia.  I  can't  think  where  all  my  strength  comes 
from.  I  could  take  a  big  rascal  like  you  in  one  hand 
— and — and — skin  him!" 

Kliin  looked  round  at  the  surveyor,  blinked  all  over 
his  face,  and  dealt  his  pony  a  blow. 

"Yes,  my  friend,"  continued  the  surveyor,  "Heaven 
help  the  robber  that  falls  into  my  hands!  Not  only 
would  he  be  left  without  arms  or  legs,  but  he  would 
have  to  answer  for  his  crimes  in  court,  where  all  the 
judges  and  lawyers  are  friends  of  mine.  I  am  a  gov- 
ernment official,  and  a  very  important  one.  When  I 
am  travelling  like  this  the  government  knows  it  and 
keeps  an  eye  on  me  to  see  that  no  one  does  me  any 
harm.  There  are  policemen  and  police  captains  hid- 
den in  the  bushes  all  along  the  road.  Stop!  Stop!" 
yelled  the  surveyor  suddenly.  "Where  are  you  going? 
Where  are  you  taking  me  to?" 

"Can't  you  see?    Into  the  wood." 

"  So  he  is,"  thought  the  surveyor.  "  I  was  frightened, 
I  mustn't  show  my  feelings;  he  has  already  seen  that  I 
am  afraid  of  him.  What  makes  him  look  around  at 
me  so  often?  He  must  be  meditating  something.  At 
first  we  barely  moved,  and  now  we  are  flying.  Listen, 
Kliin.  why  do  you  hurry  your  horse  so?" 

"I  am  not  hurrying  her;  she  is  running  away  of  her 


OVERSEASONED  7 

own  accord.  When  once  she  begins  running  away, 
nothing  will  stop  her.  She  is  sorry  herself  that  her 
legs  are  made  that  way." 

"That's  a  lie,  my  friend,  I  can  see  it's  a  lie.  I 
advise  you  not  to  go  so  fast.  Hold  your  horse  in,  do 
you  hear?  Hold  him  in!" 

"Why?" 

"Because — because — I  have  four  friends  following 
me  from  the  station.  I  want  them  to  catch  up.  They 
promised  to  catch  me  up  in  this  wood.  It  will  be 
jollier  travelling  with  them.  They  are  big,  strong 
fellows,  every  one  of  them  has  a  revolver.  Why  do 
you  look  round  and  jump  about  as  if  you  were  sitting 
on  a  tack?  Hey?  See  here,  I — I — there  is  nothing 
about  me  worth  looking  at,  there  is  nothing  interest: 
ing  about  me  in  the  least — unless  it  is  my  revolvers! 
Here,  if  you  want  to  see  them  I'll  take  them  out  and 
show  them  to  you — let  me  get  them." 

The  surveyor  pretended  to  be  searching  in  his  pockets, 
and  at  that  moment  something  happened  which  not 
even  his  worst  fears  had  led  him  to  expect.  KHm 
suddenly  threw  himself  out  of  the  wagon  and  ran  off 
on  all  fours  through  the  forest. 

"Help!"  he  shouted.  "Help!  Take  my  horse,  take 
my  wagon,  accursed  one,  only  spare  me  my  soul! 
Help!" 

The  sound  of  his  hurrying  footsteps  died  away,  the 
dry  leaves  rustled,  all  was  still.  When  this  unexpected 
judgment  fell  on  him,  the  surveyor's  first  act  was  to 


8  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

stop  the  horse;  then  he  settled  himself  more  comfort- 
ably in  the  wagon  and  began  to  think. 

"So  he  has  taken  fright  and  made  off,  the  fool! 
Well,  what  shall  I  do  now?  I  don't  know  the  way,  so 
I  can't  go  on  alone,  and,  anyway,  if  I  did,  it  would  look 
as  if  I  had  stolen  his  horse.  What  shall  I  do?  Klim! 
Klim!" 

"Klim!"  answered  the  echo. 

At  the  idea  of  spending  the  whole  night  alone  in  a 
dark  forest,  listening  to  the  wolves,  the  echo,  and  the 
snorting  of  the  lean  pony,  the  surveyor  felt  the  goose- 
flesh  running  up  and  down  his  spine. 

"KUm!"  he  yelled.  "Dear  old  Klim!  Good  old 
Klim!  Where  are  you?" 

For  two  hours  he  called,  and  it  was  not  until  he  had 
lost  his  voice  and  resigned  himself  to  the  thought  of 
a  night  in  the  forest  that  a  faint  breeze  brought  him 
the  sound  of  a  groan. 

"Klim,  is  that  you,  old  man?  Come,  Klim,  let  us 
start!" 

"You— you'll  kUl  me!" 

"Why,  Klim,  I  was  only  joking,  old  chap;  upon  my 
word  I  was.  Fancy  my  carrying  revolvers  with  me! 
I  lied  like  that  because  I  was  afraid.  Do  let  us  start; 
I  am  frozen!" 

Klim,  thinking,  no  doubt,  that  a  real  robber  would 
have  made  off  long  ago  with  the  horse  and  wagon, 
came  out  of  the  forest  and  approached  his  fare  with 
caution. 


OVERSEASONED  9 

"What  are  you  afraid  of,  idiot?  I  was  only  joking, 
and  you  are  afraid  of  me!  Get  in!" 

"Lord,  Mister,"  muttered  Klim,  climbing  into  the 
wagon,  "if  I  had  foreseen  this  I  wouldn't  have  taken 
you  for  a  hundred  roubles.  You  have  nearly  scared 
me  to  death!" 

Klim  beat  his  pony — the  wagon  shuddered;  Klim 
beat  him  again — the  wagon  rocked;  at  the  fourth  stroke, 
as  the  wagon  moved  slowly  away,  the  surveyor  pulled 
his  coat  collar  over  his  ears  and  abandoned  himself 
to  meditation. 

Neither  Klim  nor  the  road  seemed  dangerous  now. 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  EASTER 

I  WAS  standing  on  the  bank  of  the  Goltva  waiting 
for  the  ferry-boat  to  come  across  from  the  other 
side.  At  most  times  the  Goltva  is  a  silent  and  pensive 
little  river  sparkling  shyly  behind  a  rank  growth  of 
rushes,  but  now  a  whole  lake  lay  spread  before  me. 
The  swelling  spring  floods  had  topped  both  banks  and 
drowned  the  riverside  for  a  long  way  inland,  taking 
possession  of  gardens,  meadows,  and  marshes,  so  that 
here  and  there  only  a  solitary  bush  or  poplar-tree  was 
seen  sticking  up  above  the  surface  like  a  rough  rock 
in  the  darkness. 

The  weather,  I  thought,  was  gorgeous.  The  night 
was  dark,  but  I  could,  nevertheless,  distinguish  the 
water,  the  trees,  and  any  one  standing  near  me.  The 
world  was  lit  by  stars,  which  were  scattered  without 
number  over  the  whole  sky.  I  don't  remember  ever 
having  seen  so  many  stars.  You  literally  could  not 
have  inserted  a  finger-tip  between  them.  There  were 
big  ones  the  size  of  a  goose's  egg  and  little  ones  the 
size  of  a  hemp-seed;  they  had  all  come  out  in  the  sky, 
to  the  last  one,  to  celebrate  Easter  in  holiday  splendour, 
washed,  fresh,  and  joyous,  and  all  gently  twinkled 
their  rays.  The  sky  was  reflected  in  the  river,  and  the 
10 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  EASTER  11 

stars  bathed  themselves  in  its  depths  and  trembled  on 
its  ripples.  The  air  was  still  and  warm.  Far  away, 
in  the  impenetrable  darkness  on  the  other  shore,  burnt 
a  few  bright-red  fires. 

A  couple  of  steps  away  from  me  I  made  out  the  dark 
figure  of  a  man,  in  a  high  sheepskin  hat,  carrying  a 
gnarled  stick. 

"How  slow  the  ferry  is  in  coming!"  I  said. 

"It  is  time  it  was  here,"  answered  the  dark  figure. 

"Are  you  waiting  for  it,  too?" 

"No;  I  am  just  waiting,"  yawned  the  peasant.  "I 
want  to  see  the  'lumination.  I  would  go  across,  only 
I  haven't  five  copecks  for  the  ferry." 

"I'll  give  you  five  copecks." 

"No,  thank  you  kindly;  you  can  keep  them  and 
burn  a  candle  for  me  when  you  reach  the  monastery. 
It  will  be  better  so,  and  I  will  stand  here.  And  that 
ferry-boat  hasn't  come  yet!  Has  it  sunk?" 

The  peasant  went  down  to  the  water's  edge,  took 
hold  of  the  cable,  and  called  out:  "Jerome!  Je-rome!" 

As  if  in  answer  to  his  cry,  the  slow  booming  of  a 
great  bell  came  to  us  from  the  other  shore,  a  deep, 
muffled  note,  like  the  lowest  string  of  a  double  bass, 
and  it  seemed  as  if  the  night  itself  were  groaning. 
The  next  moment  a  cannon  was  fired.  The  sound  of 
it  rolled  through  the  darkness  and  stopped  some- 
where behind  my  back.  The  peasant  took  off  his  hat 
and  crossed  himself. 

"Christ  has  risen!"  he  said. 


12  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

The  vibrations  of  the  first  shot  had  hardly  sub- 
sided before  a  second  was  heard,  then  a  third  one  di- 
rectly after  that,  and  the  darkness  was  filled  with  an 
incessant,  shuddering  rumble.  New  fires  blazed  up 
near  the  red  ones,  and  all  danced  and  flashed  together 
turbulently. 

"Je-rome!"  came  a  faint,  long-drawn  cry. 

"They  are  calling  from  the  other  shore,"  said  the 
peasant.  "That  means  that  the  ferry-boat  isn't  there, 
either.  Jerome  must  be  asleep." 

The  fires  and  the  velvet  notes  of  the  bell  were  calling; 
I  was  beginning  to  lose  my  patience  and  my  temper; 
at  last,  peering  into  the  thick  darkness,  I  saw  the  shape 
of  something  that  looked  very  much  like  a  gallows. 
It  was  the  long-expected  ferry-boat.  It  came  so  slowly 
that  if  its  outline  had  not  gradually  grown  sharper 
one  might  have  fancied  it  was  standing  still  or  moving 
toward  the  other  shore. 

"Jerome!  Be  quick!"  shouted  my  peasant.  "A 
gentleman  is  waiting!" 

The  ferry-boat  slipped  up  to  the  bank,  rocked, 
creaked,  and  stopped.  A  tall  man  was  standing  on  it 
holding  the  cable;  he  wore  the  cassock  and  conical 
hat  of  a  monk. 

"What  made  you  so  slow  in  coming?"  I  asked,  jump- 
ing on  board. 

"Forgive  me,"  answered  Jerome.  "Is  there  no  one 
else?" 

"No  one." 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  EASTER  13 

Jerome  took  the  cable  in  both  hands,  bent  himself 
into  the  form  of  a  question-mark,  and  gave  a  grunt. 
The  ferry-boat  creaked  and  rocked;  the  form  of  the 
peasant  in  the  high  hat  slowly  disappeared;  we  were 
off.  Jerome  soon  straightened  himself  and  began  to 
work  with  one  hand.  We  were  silent  and  fixed  our 
eyes  on  the  shore  toward  which  we  were  floating. 
There  the  "  'lumination"  which  the  peasant  was  ex- 
pecting had  already  begun.  Great  barrels  of  pitch 
blazed  at  the  water's  edge,  and  their  reflection,  red  as 
from  the  rising  moon,  ran  out  -in  a  broad  streak  to 
meet  us.  The  burning  barrels  lit  up  the  smoke  that 
rose  from  them  and  the  human  figures  that  flashed  in 
and  out  among  them,  but  around  and  behind  them, 
where  the  velvet  notes  came  from,  lay  an  impenetra- 
ble blackness.  Suddenly,  cleaving  the  night,  a  rocket 
shot  up  to  heaven  like  a  golden  ribbon,  curved,  and, 
as  if  shattering  against  the  sky,  was  spilled  in  sparks. 
A  roar  like  distant  cheering  rose  from  the  shore. 

"How  beautiful!"  I  exclaimed. 

"Too  beautiful  for  words,"  sighed  Jerome.  "It  is 
the  night,  sir.  At  another  time  we  would  not  notice 
a  rocket,  but  to-night  one  rejoices  at  a  trifle.  Where 
are  you  from?" 

I  told  him. 

"Yes,  this  is  a  joyful  night,"  continued  Jerome  in 
the  weak,  sighing  voice  of  one  convalescing  from  an 
illness.  "Heaven  and  earth  are  rejoicing,  all  creation 
is  celebrating  the  holiday.  Can  you  tell  me,  kind 


14  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

master,  why  it  is  that  even  in  the  presence  of  great 
happiness  a  man  cannot  forget  his  grief?" 

It  seemed  to  me  that  this  unexpected  question  was 
a  challenge  to  one  of  those  lengthy,  soul-saving  dis- 
cussions that  idle  and  weary  monks  like  so  well.  I 
did  not  feel  in  the  mood  for  talking  much,  so  I  only 


"What  is  your  grief,  brother?" 

"Just  an  ordinary  one,  like  every  one  else's,  kind 
master;  to-day  a  special  sorrow  has  fallen  on  the 
monastery;  OUT  Deacon  Nicolas  died  at  mass." 

"God's  will  be  done!"  said  I,  counterfeiting  a  monk- 
ish tone.  "  We  must  all  die.  I  even  think  you  should 
rejoice,  for  they  say  that  whoever  dies  on  Easter  eve 
goes  straight  to  heaven." 

"That  is  true." 

We  stopped  speaking.  The  figure  of  the  peasant  in 
the  sheepskin  hat  faded  into  the  line  of  the  shore,  the 
barrels  of  pitch  blazed  brighter  and  brighter. 

"And  the  Scriptures  point  clearly  to  the  vanity  of 
sorrow  and  regret,"  Jerome  broke  silence.  "Then, 
why  does  the  heart  sorrow  and  refuse  to  listen  to 
reason?  Why  does  one  want  to  cry  so  bitterly?" 

Jerome  shrugged  his  shoulders  and,  turning  to  me, 
began  to  speak  rapidly: 

"  If  I  had  died,  or  any  one  else  had  died,  it  wouldn't 
have  mattered,  we  shouldn't  have  been  missed;  but  it 
was  Nicolas  who  died — no  one  else  but  Nicolas!  It 
is  hard  to  believe  that  he  is  no  longer  on  earth.  As  I 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  EASTER  15 

stand  here  now  on  the  ferry,  it  seems  to  me  as  if  every 
moment  I  should  hear  his  voice  from  the  shore.  He 
always  came  down  to  the  river  and  called  to  me  so 
that  I  should  not  feel  lonely  on  the  ferry.  He  used  to 
leave  his  bed  at  night  on  purpose  to  do  it.  He  was  so 
good.  Oh,  dear,  how  good  and  kind  he  was!  Even  a 
mother  is  not  to  other  men  what  Nicolas  was  to  me. 
Have  mercy  on  his  soul,  O  Lord!" 

Jerome  gave  the  cable  a  pull,  but  immediately  turned 
to  me  again: 

"Your  honour,  how  bright  his  mind  was!"  he  said 
softly.  "How  sweet  and  musical  his  voice  was!  Just 
such  a  voice  as  they  will  sing  of  now  at  mass:  'Oh,  most 
kind,  most  comforting  is  Thy  voice.'  And,  above  all 
other  human  qualities,  he  had  one  extraordinary  gift." 

"What  gift?"  I  asked. 

The  monk  glanced  at  me  and,  as  if  assured  that  he 
could  intrust  me  with  a  secret,  said,  laughing  gaily: 

"He  had  the  gift  of  writing  akaphists!"  *  he  said. 
"It  was  a  miracle,  sir,  nothing  less.  You  will  be  as- 
tonished when  I  tell  you  about  it.  Our  father  archi- 
mandrite comes  from  Moscow,  our  father  vicar  has 
studied  in  Kazan,  we  have  wise  monks  and  elders,  and 
yet — what  do  you  think? — not  one  of  them  can  write! 
And  Nicolas,  a  plain  monk,  a  deacon,  who  never  learnt 
anything  and  had  nothing  to  show — he  could  write! 
It  was  a  miracle,  truly  a  miracle!" 

*  Akaphist:  a  service  of  prayer  to  a  special  saint  said  or  sung  on 
that  saint's  day. 


16  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

Jerome  clasped  his  hands  and,  entirely  forgetting  the 
cable,  continued  with  passion: 

"Our  father  vicar  has  the  greatest  trouble  over  his 
sermons.  When  he  was  writing  the  history  of  the 
monastery,  he  tired  out  the  whole  brotherhood  and 
made  ten  trips  to  town;  but  Nicolas  could  write  aka- 
phists,  not  just  sermons  and  histories!" 

"And  are  akaphists  so  hard  to  write?" 

"Very  hard,"  nodded  Jerome.  "Wisdom  and  saint- 
liness  will  not  help  him  to  whom  God  has  not  given 
the  gift.  The  monks  who  don't  understand  argue 
that  you  need  only  know  the  life  of  the  saint  of  whom 
you  are  writing  and  follow  the  other  akaphists,  but 
that  is  not  so,  sir.  Of  course,  to  write  an  akaphist  one 
must  know  the  life  of  the  saint  down  to  the  least  detail, 
and  of  course,  too,  one  must  conform  to  the  other 
akaphists  so  far  as  knowing  where  to  begin  and  what  to 
write  about.  To  give  you  an  example,  the  first  hymn 
must  always  begin  with  'It  is  forbidden'  or  'It  is 
elected,'  and  the  first  ikos*  must  always  begin  with 'An- 
gel.' If  you  are  interested  in  hearing  it,  in  the  akaphist 
to  the  Lord  Jesus  the  first  ikos  begins  like  this :  'Angels 
of  the  Creator,  might  of  the  Lord';  in  the  akaphist  to 
the  Holy  Virgin  it  begins,  'An  angel  was  sent,  a  mes- 
senger from  heaven';  in  the  akaphist  to  Nicolas  the 
Wonder-worker  it  begins,  'An  angel  in  form,  a  being  of 
earth' — they  all  begin  with  'Angel.'  Of  course,  an  aka- 
phist must  conform  to  other  akaphists,  but  the  im- 
*  Ikos.  One  of  the  short  prayers  included  in  an  akaphist. 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  EASTER  17 

portant  thing  is  not  the  life  of  the  saint  nor  its  conform- 
ity, but  its  beauty,  its  sweetness.  Everything  about  it 
must  be  graceful  and  brief  and  exact.  Every  line 
must  be  tender  and  gentle  and  soft;  not  a  word  must 
be  harsh  or  unsuitable  or  rough.  It  must  be  written 
so  that  he  who  prays  with  his  heart  may  weep  with 
joy,  that  his  soul  may  shudder  and  be  afraid.  In  an 
akaphist  to  the  Virgin  he  wrote:  'Rejoice,  exalted  of 
men!  Rejoice,  beloved  of  the  angels.'  In  another 
part  of  the  same  akaphist  he  wrote:  'Rejoice,  holy- 
fruited  tree  that  nourishest  our  faith;  rejoice,  tree  of 
merciful  leaves  that  coverest  our  sins'!" 

Jerome  bowed  his  head  and  covered  his  face  with  his 
hands,  as  if  he  had  taken  fright  or  were  ashamed  of 
something. 

"Holy-fruited  tree — tree  of  merciful  leaves!"  he 
muttered.  "Were  there  ever  such  words?  How  was 
it  possible  that  the  Lord  should  have  given  him  such 
a  gift?  For  brevity  he  used  to  combine  many  words 
and  thoughts  into  one  word,  and  how  smoothly  and 
truly  his  writing  flowed!  'Lambent  Star  of  the  world,' 
he  says  in  an  akaphist  to  Jesus  the  all-merciful. 
'Lambent  Star  of  the  world!'  Those  words  have  never 
been  spoken  or  written  before;  he  thought  of  them 
himself;  he  found  them  in  his  own  mind!  But  each 
line  must  not  only  be  fluent  and  eloquent,  it  must  be 
adorned  with  many  things — with  flowers  and  light  and 
wind  and  sun  and  all  the  objects  of  the  visible  world. 
And  every  invocation  must  be  written  to  fall  softly 


18  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

and  gratefully  on  the  ear.  'Rejoice  in  the  land  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Paradise,'  he  wrote  in  an  akaphist  to  Ni- 
colas the  Wonder-worker,  not  simply  'Rejoice  in  Para- 
dise.' It  is  smoother  so  and  sweeter  to  the  ear.  And 
that  is  how  Nicolas  wrote;  just  like  that.  But  I  can't 
tell  you  how  well  he  wrote." 

"Yes,  in  that  case  it  is  a  pity  he  died,"  I  said;  "but 
still,  brother,  let  us  go  ahead,  or  we  shall  be  late." 

Jerome  recollected  himself  and  took  hold  of  the 
cable.  On  the  shore  all  the  bells  had  begun  to  ring; 
the  Procession  of  the  Cross  had  probably  started  near 
the  monastery,  for  now  the  dark  space  behind  the  bon- 
fires was  strewn  with  moving  lights. 

"Did  Nicolas  have  his  akaphists  printed?"  I  asked 
Jerome. 

"How  could  he  have  them  printed?"  he  sighed. 
"And  then  it  would  have  been  strange;  why  should 
he?  No  one  in  our  monastery  was  interested  in  them; 
they  didn't  care  for  them.  They  knew  that  Nicolas 
wrote  but  never  gave  it  any  thought.  No  one  sets 
any  value  on  modern  writing  these  days." 

"Are  they  prejudiced  against  it?" 

"Exactly.  If  Nicolas  had  been  an  elder,  perhaps 
the  brothers  might  have  been  interested,  but  he  wasn't 
even  forty  years  old.  Some  laughed  at  him  and  even 
counted  his  writing  a  sin." 

"Then,  why  did  he  write?" 

"Oh,  chiefly  for  his  own  consolation.  I  was  the 
only  one  of  the  brothers  who  read  his  akaphists.  He 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  EASTER  19 

used  to  throw  his  arms  around  me  and  smooth  my  hair 
and  call  me  tender  names,  as  if  I  were  a  little  child. 
He  used  to  open  the  door  of  his  cell  and  make  me  sit 
by  him,  and  we  used  to  read " 

Jerome  left  his  cable  and  came  toward  me. 

"We  were  such  friends,"  he  whispered  with  shining 
eyes.  "Wherever  he  went,  I  went.  When  I  was  not 
with  him  he  was  sad;  he  loved  me  more  than  all  the 
others,  and  all  because  his  akaphists  made  me  cry. 
It  is  sad  to  remember.  Now  I  am  like  an  orphan  or  a 
widower.  The  brothers  in  our  monastery  are  good 
and  kind  and  pious,  you  know,  but  not  one  of  them  is 
gentle  and  tender.  They  are  all  noisy,  and  talk 
loudly,  and  cough,  and  walk  heavily,  but  Nicolas 
always  spoke  quietly  and  gently,  and  if  he  saw  that 
any  one  was  asleep  or  praying  he  would  go  by  them  as 
lightly  as  a  fly  or  a  gnat.  His  face  was  compassionate 
and  tender " 

Jerome  sighed  deeply  and  pulled  the  cable.  We 
were  already  nearing  the  shore.  Out  of  the  silence 
and  darkness  of  the  river  we  slowly  drifted  into  a 
magician's  land,  smothered  in  choking  smoke,  uproari- 
ous with  noise  and  light.  Figures,  seen  clearly  now, 
were  moving  among  the  fires;  the  light  of  the  flames 
lent  a  strange,  fantastic  look  to  their  red  faces  and  forms. 
Here  and  there  appeared  the  heads  of  horses,  motion- 
less as  if  cast  in  red  copper. 

"  They  will  soon  sing  the  Easter  canon,"  said  Jerome. 
"But  Nicolas  is  dead,  so  there  will  be  no  one  to  pene- 


20  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

trate  its  meaning.  For  him,  no  sweeter  writing  existed 
than  this  Easter  canon.  He  used  to  listen  to  every 
word.  You  will  be  there,  sir;  listen  to  the  singing." 

"What,  won't  you  be  in  church?" 

"I  can't;   I  must  run  the  ferry." 

"But  won't  they  relieve  you?" 

"I  don't  know.  I  should  have  been  relieved  at  nine 
o'clock,  and,  you  see,  I  am  still  here.  I  must  say,  I 
should  like  to  go  to  church." 

"Are  you  a  monk?" 

"Yes — that  is,  I  am  a  lay  brother." 

The  ferry-boat  ran  against  the  bank  and  stopped. 
I  slipped  five  copecks  for  my  fare  into  Jerome's  hand 
and  jumped  ashore.  A  wagon  carrying  a  boy  and  a 
sleeping  woman  at  once  drove  onto  the  ferry-boat. 
Jerome,  faintly  red  in  the  firelight,  bent  to  his  rope  and 
started  the  boat. 

The  first  few  steps  I  took  were  in  the  mud;  farther 
on  I  came  to  a  soft,  freshly  trampled  path.  This  led 
to  the  dark,  cave-like  monastery  gates,  through  clouds 
of  smoke  and  a  confused  multitude  of  men  and  women, 
unharnessed  horses,  carts,  and  wagons.  All  chattered 
and  snorted  and  laughed,  gleaming  in  the  crimson 
light  through  eddying  shadows  of  smoke — chaos  in- 
deed! And  amidst  all  this  jostling  there  was  found 
room  to  load  a  little  cannon  and  sell  gingerbread! 

Not  less  activity  but  more  order  and  decorum  pre- 
vailed in  the  enclosure  inside  the  walls.  Here  the  air 
smelt  of  juniper  and  incense.  The  crowd  talked  loudly, 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  EASTER          21 

but  there  was  no  laughing  or  neighing  of  horses.  Peo- 
ple carrying  loaves  and  bundles  stood  huddled  together 
among  the  crosses  and  tombstones;  it  was  evident 
that  many  of  them  had  come  a  long  way  to  have  their 
loaves  blessed,  and  were  tired.  The  strip  of  iron  pave- 
ment that  led  from  the  gates  to  the  church  door  rang 
loudly  under  the  boots  of  the  young  lay  brethren 
running  busily  along  it;  in  the  bell-tower  there  was 
hurrying  and  calling. 

"What  a  busy  night  this  is!"  I  thought.  "How 
good  it  is!" 

Everything  in  nature  seemed  to  reflect  this  activity, 
from  the  dark  shadows  to  the  iron  pavement,  the  tomb- 
stones, and  the  trees  under  which  the  crowd  was 
stirring.  A  turbulent  contest  was  going  on  at  the  door 
between  the  ebbing  and  flowing  throngs.  Some  were 
hurrying  in,  others  were  coming  out,  to  return,  stand 
for  a  moment,  and  again  move  on.  They  went  from 
place  to  place,  roaming  about  as  if  in  search  of  some- 
thing; waves  started  from  the  door  and  swept  along 
the  church,  even  stirring  the  front  rows,  where  the 
more  serious  and  solid  folk  were  standing.  Of  regu- 
larly conducted  prayer  there  could  be  no  thought; 
there  was  no  praying  at  all,  only  a  kind  of  whole- 
hearted, irresponsible,  childish  joy,  seeking  a  pretext  to 
break  out  and  discharge  itself  in  movement  of  any  kind, 
even  in  disorderly  pushing  and  crowding. 

The  same  unusual  activity  struck  one  in  the  Easter 
service.  The  sanctuary  gates  of  all  the  chapels  were 


22  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

thrown  wide  open;  dense  clouds  of  incense  floated 
around  the  lustres;  everywhere  were  lights,  brilliance, 
and  the  glitter  of  tapers.  All  reading  was  out  of  the 
question,  and  the  singing  went  gaily  and  busily  on 
without  interruption.  After  every  canon  the  priests 
changed  their  vestments  and  went  out  to  scatter  in- 
cense, and  this  took  place  nearly  every  ten  minutes. 

I  had  hardly  succeeded  in  securing  a  place  before  a 
wave  swept  down  from  the  front  of  the  church  and 
threw  me  back.  Before  me  passed  a  tall,  stout  deacon, 
holding  a  long  red  taper,  and  behind  him,  carrying  the 
incense,  hurried  a  grey-haired  archimandrite  wearing 
a  golden  mitre.  As  they  disappeared  from  sight  the 
crowd  pushed  me  back  to  my  former  place.  But 
scarcely  had  ten  minutes  elapsed  before  another  wave 
swept  up  and  again  the  deacon  appeared.  This  time 
he  was  followed  by  the  father  vicar,  the  same  who, 
according  to  Jerome,  had  written  the  history  of  the 
monastery. 

As  I  mixed  with  the  crowd  and  caught  the  pervad- 
ing, joyous  excitement  my  heart  ached  unbearably  for 
Jerome.  Why  did  they  not  relieve  him?  Why  should 
not  some  one  less  impressionable,  with  less  feeling  than 
he,  go  to  the  ferry? 

"Lift  up  thine  eyes,  O  Zion,  and  behold,"  sang  the 
choir.  "Thy  Son,  the  Light  of  God,  has  come." 

I  glanced  at  the  faces  around  me.  All  wore  a  bright 
look  of  exaltation,  but  not  a  man  "penetrated  the 
meaning"  of  the  singing,  and  no  one  "caught  his 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  EASTER          23 

breath"  to  hear.  Why  did  they  not  relieve  Jerome? 
In  my  imagination  I  could  see  him  so  clearly,  standing 
quietly  against  the  wall,  bending  forward,  eagerly 
grasping  the  beauty  of  the  sacred  words.  All  that  lay 
beyond  the  hearing  of  the  people  standing  near  me 
he  would  have  drunk  greedily  with  his  quick  ear,  he 
would  have  grown  drunk  with  rapture  until  he  caught 
his  breath,  and  in  the  whole  church  there  would  have 
been  no  happier  man  than  he.  Now  he  was  rowing 
back  and  forth  on  the  dark  river,  sorrowing  for  his 
dead  brother  and  friend.  A  wave  rolled  up  from  be- 
hind, and  a  fat,  smiling  monk,  looking  back  and  finger- 
ing a  rosary,  came  slipping  sideways  by  me,  forcing  a 
passage  for  a  lady  in  a  hat  and  velvet  cloak.  Behind 
the  lady  hurried  a  servant  of  the  monastery,  holding  a 
chair  above  our  heads. 

I  left  the  church,  wishing  to  see  the  dead  Nicolas, 
unknown  writer  of  akaphists.  I  passed  through  the 
enclosure  where  a  row  of  monks'  cells  lay  along  the 
walls  and  looked  into  several  windows  but,  seeing  noth- 
ing, turned  back.  I  do  not  regret  now  not  having 
seen  Nicolas.  Who  knows  if  in  doing  so  I  might  not 
have  dimmed  the  picture  of  him  which  my  fancy  now 
paints?  I  see  him  clearly,  that  lovable  and  poetical 
being  who  went  out  at  night  to  call  to  Jerome,  and, 
lonely  and  uncomprehended,  strewed  his  akaphists  with 
stars  and  rays  of  sunlight.  He  is  shy  and  pale,  with 
a  gentle,  pensive  face,  and  in  his  eyes,  beside  intel- 
ligence, I  see  shining  the  tenderness  and  hardly 


24  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

repressed,  childlike  rapture  which  I  had  noticed  in 
Jerome's  voice  when  he  recited  to  me  quotations  from 
the  akaphists. 

When  we  left  the  church  after  mass  it  was  already 
light.  Morning  was  here.  The  stars  had  faded  and 
the  sky  looked  blue-grey  and  dull;  the  iron  pavement, 
the  tombstones,  and  the  buds  on  the  trees  were  wet 
with  dew;  the  air  was  piercing  and  damp.  Outside 
the  enclosure  there  was  no  activity  such  as  I  had  seen 
the  night  before.  Horses  and  men  looked  tired  and 
sleepy;  they  scarcely  stirred,  and  a  few  heaps  of  black 
ashes  were  all  that  remained  of  the  barrels  of  pitch. 
When  a  man  is  tired  and  drowsy  he  thinks  that  nature, 
too,  is  in  the  same  condition.  The  trees  and  the  young 
grass  seemed  to  me  to  be  asleep,  and  even  the  bells 
seemed  to  ring  less  loudly  and  merrily  than  they  had 
the  night  before.  The  bustle  was  over,  and  all  that 
remained  after  the  excitement  was  a  pleasant  lassitude 
and  a  desire  for  sleep  and  warmth. 

I  could  now  see  the  river  from  shore  to  shore.  A 
light  mist  was  drifting  in  little  clouds  across  its  sur- 
face, and  a  chilly  dampness  breathed  from  the  water. 
When  I  jumped  onto  the  ferry  a  wagon  and  about 
twenty  men  and  women  were  already  on  it.  The 
damp  and,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  drowsy  cable  stretched 
across  the  broad  river  and  was  lost  in  places  in  the 
white  mist. 

"Christ  is  risen!  Is  there  no  one  else?"  asked  a 
gentle  voice. 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  EASTER          25 

I  recognised  it  as  Jerome's.  The  darkness  no  longer 
hid  the  monk  from  view,  and  I  saw  a  tall,  narrow- 
shouldered  man  of  thirty-five,  with  large,  rounded 
features,  half-closed,  drowsy  eyes,  and  a  rough,  wedge- 
shaped  beard.  He  looked  extraordinarily  sad  and 
tired. 

"Haven't  they  relieved  you  yet?"  I  asked  with 
surprise. 

"Me?"  he  asked,  smiling  and  turning  his  chilled, 
dew-drenched  face  to  me.  "There  won't  be  any  one 
to  take  my  place  till  morning.  Everybody  has  gone 
to  the  archimandrite  now  to  break  the  Lenten  fast." 

He  pulled  the  cable,  helped  by  a  little  peasant  in  a 
red  fur  hat  that  looked  like  the  tubs  honey  is  sold  in; 
they  grunted  amicably  and  the  ferry  moved  off. 

We  floated  across  the  river,  troubling  on  our  passage 
the  slowly  rising  mist.  No  one  spoke.  Jerome  worked 
silently  with  one  hand.  For  a  long  time  he  rested  his 
dim,  timid  eyes  on  us  all,  and  then  at  last  fixed  his 
gaze  on  the  rosy  face  of  a  young  merchant's  wife  stand- 
ing beside  me,  shrinking  in  silence  from  the  mist  that 
enveloped  her.  He  did  not  take  his  eyes  off  her  face 
as  long  as  the  journey  lasted. 

There  was  little  of  the  man  in  that  long  gaze;  and  it 
seemed  to  me  as  if  Jerome  were  seeking  in  the  woman's 
face  the  sweet  and  gentle  features  of  his  lost  friend. 


AT  HOME 

"QOMEBODY  came  from  the  Grigorieffs'  to  fetch 

£j  a  book,  but  I  said  you  were  not  at  home.  The 
postman  has  brought  the  newspapers  and  two  letters. 
And,  by  the  way,  sir,  I  wish  you  would  give  your  at- 
tention to  Seriozha.  I  saw  him  smoking  to-day  and 
also  day  before  yesterday.  When  I  told  him  how 
wrong  it  was  he  put  his  fingers  in  his  ears,  as  he  always 
does,  and  began  to  sing  loudly  so  as  to  drown  my 
voice." 

Eugene  Bikofski,  an  attorney  of  the  circuit  court, 
who  had  just  come  home  from  a  session  and  was  taking 
off  his  gloves  in  his  study,  looked  at  the  governess 
who  was  making  this  statement  and  laughed. 

"So  Seriozha  has  been  smoking!"  he  said  with  a 
shrug  of  his  shoulders.  "Fancy  the  little  beggar  with 
a  cigarette  in  his  mouth!  How  old  is  he?" 

"Seven  years  old.  It  seems  of  small  consequence 
to  you,  but  at  his  age  smoking  is  a  bad,  a  harmful 
habit;  and  bad  habits  should  be  nipped  in  the  bud." 

"You  are  absolutely  right.  Where  does  he  get  the 
tobacco?" 

"From  your  table." 

"He  does?    In  that  case,  send  him  to  me." 
26 


AT  HOME  27 

When  the  governess  had  gone,  Bikofski  sat  down  in 
an  easy  chair  before  his  writing-table  and  began  to 
think.  For  some  reason  he  pictured  to  himself  his 
Seriozha  enveloped  in  clouds  of  tobacco  smoke,  with  a 
huge,  yard-long  cigarette  in  his  mouth,  and  this  carica- 
ture made  him  smile.  At  the  same  time  the  earnest, 
anxious  face  of  the  governess  awakened  in  him  mem- 
ories of  days  long  past  and  half  forgotten,  when  smok- 
ing at  school  and  in  the  nursery  aroused  in  masters 
and  parents  a  strange,  almost  incomprehensible  hor- 
ror. It  really  was  horror.  Children  were  unmercifully 
flogged,  and  expelled  from  school,  and  their  lives  were  ' 
blighted,  although  not  one  of  the  teachers  nor  fathers 
knew  exactly  what  constituted  the  harm  and  offence 
of  smoking.  Even  very  intelligent  people  did  not 
hesitate  to  combat  the  vice  they  did  not  understand. 
Bikofski  called  to  mind  the  principal  of  his  school,  a 
highly  educated,  good-natured  old  man,  who  was  so 
shocked  when  he  caught  a  scholar  with  a  cigarette  that 
he  would  turn  pale  and  immediately  summon  a  special 
meeting  of  the  school  board  and  sentence  the  offender 
to  expulsion.  No  doubt  that  is  one  of  the  laws  of 
society — the  less  an  evil  is  understood  the  more  bit- 
terly and  harshly  is  it  attacked. 

The  attorney  thought  of  the  two  or  three  boys  who 
had  been  expelled  and  of  their  subsequent  lives,  and 
could  not  but  reflect  that  punishment  is,  in  many  cases, 
more  productive  of  evil  than  crime  itself.  The  living 
organism  possesses  the  faculty  of  quickly  adapting 


28  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

itself  to  every  condition;  if  it  were  not  so  man  would 
be  conscious  every  moment  of  the  unreasonable  foun- 
dations on  which  his  reasonable  actions  rest  and  of 
how  little  of  justice  and  assurance  are  to  be  found  even 
in  those  activities  which  are  fraught  with  so  much  re- 
sponsibility and  which  are  so  appalling  in  their  conse- 
quences, such  as  education,  literature,  the  law 

And  thoughts  such  as  these  came  floating  into 
Bikof ski's  head;  light,  evanescent  thoughts  such  as 
only  enter  weary,  resting  brains.  One  knows  not 
whence  they  are  nor  why  they  come;  they  stay  but  a 
short  while  and  seem  to  spread  across  the  surface  of 
the  brain  without  ever  sinking  very  far  into  its  depths. 
For  those  whose  minds  for  hours  and  days  together 
are  forced  to  be  occupied  with  business  and  to  travel 
always  along  the  same  lines,  these  homelike,  untram- 
melled musings  bring  a  sort  of  comfort  and  a  pleasant 
restfulness  of  their  own. 

It  was  nine  o'clock.  On  the  floor  overhead  some 
one  was  pacing  up  and  down,  and  still  higher  up,  on 
the  third  story,  four  hands  were  playing  scales  on  the 
piano.  The  person  who  was  pacing  the  floor  seemed, 
from  his  nervous  strides,  to  be  the  victim  of  tormenting 
thoughts  or  of  the  toothache;  his  footsteps  and  the 
monotonous  scales  added  to  the  quiet  of  the  evening 
something  somnolent  that  predisposed  the  mind  to  idle 
reveries. 

In  the  nursery,  two  rooms  away,  Seriozha  and  his 
governess  were  talking. 


AT  HOME  29 

"Pa-pa  has  come!"  sang  the  boy.  "Papa  has  co- 
ome!  Pa!  Pa!  Pa!" 

"Votre  pere  vous  appelle,  allez  vite!"  cried  the  gov- 
erness, twittering  like  a  frightened  bird. 

"What  shall  I  say  to  him?"  thought  Bikofski. 

But  before  he  had  had  time  to  think  of  anything 
to  say  his  son  Seriozha  had  already  entered  the  study. 
This  was  a  little  person  whose  sex  could  only  be  divined 
from  his  clothes — he  was  so  delicate,  and  fair,  and  frail. 
His  body  was  as  languid  as  a  hot-house  plant  and  every- 
thing about  him  looked  wonderfully  dainty  and  soft — 
his  movements,  his  curly  hair,  his  glance,  his  velvet 
tunic. 

"Good  evening,  papa,"  he  said  in  a  gentle  voice, 
climbing  onto  his  father's  knee  and  swiftly  kissing  his 
neck.  "Did  you  send  for  me?" 

"Wait  a  bit,  wait  a  bit,  master,"  answered  the 
lawyer,  putting  him  aside.  "Before  you  and  I  kiss 
each  other  we  must  have  a  talk,  a  serious  talk.  I  am 
angry  with  you,  and  I  don't  love  you  any  more;  do 
you  understand  that,  young  man?  I  don't  love  you, 
and  you  are  no  son  of  mine." 

Seriozha  looked  steadfastly  at  his  father  and  then 
turned  his  regard  to  the  table  and  shrugged  his 
shoulders. 

"WTiat  have  I  done?"  he  asked,  perplexed,  and 
blinked.  "I  didn't  go  into  your  study  once  to-day, 
and  I  haven't  touched  a  thing." 

"Miss  Natalie  has  just  been  complaining  to  me  that 


30  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

you  have  been  smoking;  is  that  so?  Have  you  been 
smoking?" 

"Yes,  I  smoked  once.    That  is  so." 

"There!  So  now  you  have  told  a  lie  into  the  bar- 
gain!" said  the  lawyer,  disguising  his  smile  by  a  frown. 
"Miss  Natalie  saw  you  smoking  twice.  That  means 
that  you  have  been  caught  doing  three  naughty  things : 
smoking,  taking  tobacco  that  doesn't  belong  to  you 
off  my  table,  and  telling  a  lie.  Three  accusations!" 

"Oh,  ye-es!"  Seriozha  remembered,  and  his  eyes 
smiled.  "That  is  true,  true!  I  did  smoke  twice — 
to-day  and  one  other  time." 

"There,  you  see,  so  it  was  twice  and  not  once.  I 
am  very,  very  displeased  with  you.  You  used  to  be  a 
good  boy,  but  now  I  see  you  have  grown  bad  and 
naughty." 

Bikofski  straightened  Seriozha's  little  collar  and 
thought: 

"What  shall  I  say  to  him  next?" 

"Yes,  it  was  very  wrong,"  he  went  on.  "I  did  not 
expect  this  of  you.  For  one  thing,  you  have  no  right 
to  take  tobacco  that  doesn't  belong  to  you.  People 
only  have  a  right  to  use  their  own  things;  if  a  man  takes 
other  people's  things  he — he  is  bad.  ["That  isn't  what 
I  ought  to  say  to  him,"  thought  Bikofski.]  For  in- 
stance, Miss  Natalie  has  a  trunk  with  dresses  in  it. 
That  trunk  belongs  to  her,  and  we — that  is,  you  and 
I — must  not  dare  to  touch  it,  because  it  isn't  ours. 
You  have  your  little  horses  and  your  pictures.  I  don't 


AT  HOME  31 

take  them,  do  I?  Perhaps  I  should  like  to,  but  they 
are  not  mine  they  are  yours." 

"You  can  take  them  if  you  want  to,"  said  Se- 
riozha,  raising  his  eyebrows.  "Don't  mind,  papa,  you 
may  have  them.  The  little  yellow  dog  that  is  on  your 
table  is  mine,  but  I  don't  care  if  it  stays  there." 

"You  don't  understand  me,"  said  Bikofski.  "You 
made  me  a  present  of  that  little  dog;  it  belongs  to  me 
now,  and  I  can  do  what  I  like  with  it;  but  I  didn't 
give  you  the  tobacco,  the  tobacco  belongs  to  me.  ["I'm 
not  explaining  it  to  him  right,"  thought  the  lawyer, 
"not  right  at  all."]  If  I  want  to  smoke  tobacco  that 
isn't  mine  I  must  first  get  permission  to  do  so " 

And  so,  slowly  coupling  sentence  to  sentence,  and 
counterfeiting  the  speech  of  a  child,  Bikofski  went  on 
to  explain  to  his  son  the  meaning  of  possession.  Se- 
riozha's  eyes  rested  on  his  father's  chest,  and  he  lis- 
tened attentively  (he  liked  to  converse  with  his  father 
in  the  evening) ;  then  he  rested  his  elbows  on  the  edge 
of  the  table  and,  half  closing  his  near-sighted  eyes, 
began  contemplating  the  paper  and  the  inkstand. 
His  glance  roamed  across  the  table  and  was  arrested 
by  a  bottle  of  glue. 

"Papa,  what  is  glue  made  of?"  he  suddenly  asked, 
raising  the  bottle  to  his  eyes. 

Bikofski  took  the  bottle  away  from  him,  put  it 
where  it  belonged,  and  continued: 

"In  the  next  place,  you  have  been  smoking.  That 
is  very  naughty  indeed.  If  I  smoke,  it  does  not  mean 


32  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

that  smoking  is  good.  When  I  smoke  I  know  it  is  a 
stupid  thing  to  do,  and  I  am  angry  with  myself  and 
blame  myself  for  doing  it.  ["Oh,  what  a  wily  teacher 
I  am!"  thought  the  lawyer.]  Tobacco  is  very  bad  for 
the  health,  and  men  who  smoke  die  sooner  than  they 
should.  It  is  especially  bad  to  smoke  when  one  is  as 
little  as  you  are.  Your  chest  is  weak,  you  have  not 
grown  strong  yet,  and  tobacco  smoke  gives  weak  peo- 
ple consumption  and  other  diseases.  Your  Uncle  Ig- 
natius died  of  consumption;  if  he  hadn't  smoked  he 
might  have  been  living  to-day." 

Seriozha  looked  thoughtfully  at  the  lamp,  touched 
the  shade  with  his  finger,  and  sighed. 

"Uncle  Ignatius  used  to  play  the  violin,"  he  said. 
"The  Grigorieffs  have  his  violin  now." 

Seriozha  again  leaned  his  elbows  on  the  edge  of  the 
table  and  became  lost  in  thought.  From  the  expres- 
sion fixed  on  his  pale  features  he  seemed  to  be  listening 
to  something,  or  to  be  intent  on  the  unfolding  of  his 
own  ideas;  sadness  and  something  akin  to  fear  ap- 
peared in  his  great,  unblinking  eyes;  he  was  probably 
thinking  of  death,  which  such  a  little  while  ago  had 
taken  away  his  mother  and  his  Uncle  Ignatius.  Death 
carries  mothers  and  uncles  away  to  another  world,  and 
their  children  and  violins  stay  behind  on  earth.  Dead 
people  live  in  heaven,  somewhere  near  the  stars,  and 
from  there  they  look  down  upon  the  earth.  Can  they 
bear  the  separation? 

"What  shall  I  say  to  him?"  thought  Bikofski.    "He 


AT  HOME  33 

isn't  listening.  It  is  obvious  that  he  doesn't  attach 
any  importance  to  his  offence  or  to  my  arguments. 
What  can  I  say  to  touch  him?" 

The  lawyer  rose  and  walked  about  the  study. 

"In  my  day  these  questions  were  settled  with  sin- 
gular simplicity,"  he  reflected.  "If  a  youngster  was 
caught  smoking  he  was  thrashed.  This  would,  indeed, 
make  a  poor-spirited,  cowardly  boy  give  up  smoking, 
but  a  clever  and  plucky  one  would  carry  his  tobacco  in 
his  boot  after  the  whipping  and  smoke  in  an  outhouse. 
When  he  was  caught  in  the  outhouse  and  whipped 
again  he  would  go  down  and  smoke  by  the  river,  and 
so  on  until  the  lad  was  grown  up.  My  mother  used 
to  give  me  money  and  candy  to  keep  me  from  smoking. 
These  expedients  now  seem  to  us  weak  and  immoral. 
Taking  up  a  logical  standpoint,  the  educator  of  to- 
day tries  to  instil  the  first  principles  of  right  into  a 
child  by  helping  him  to  understand  them  and  not  by 
rousing  his  fear  or  his  desire  to  distinguish  himself  and 
obtain  a  reward." 

While  he  was  walking  and  meditating  Seriozha  had 
climbed  up  and  was  standing  with  his  feet  on  a  chair 
by  the  side  of  the  table  and  had  begun  to  draw  pic- 
tures. A  pile  of  paper  cut  especially  for  him  and  a 
blue  pencil  lay  on  the  table  so  that  he  should  not 
scribble  on  any  business  papers  or  touch  the  ink. 

"  Cook  cut  her  finger  to-day  while  she  was  chopping 
cabbage,"  he  said,  moving  his  eyebrows  and  drawing  a 
house.  "She  screamed  so  that  we  were  all  frightened 


34  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

and  ran  into  the  kitchen.  She  was  so  silly!  Miss 
Natalie  told  her  to  dip  her  finger  in  cold  water,  but 
she  would  only  suck  it.  How  could  she  put  her  dirty 
finger  in  her  mouth!  Papa,  that  wasn't  nice,  was 
it?" 

Then  he  went  on  to  narrate  how  an  organ-grinder 
had  come  into  the  yard  during  dinner,  with  a  little  girl 
who  had  sung  and  danced  to  the  music. 

"He  has  his  own  field  of  thought,"  the  lawyer  re- 
flected. "He  has  a  little  world  of  his  own  in  his  head, 
and  knows  what,  according  to  him,  is  important  and 
what  is  not.  One  cannot  cheat  him  of  his  attention 
and  consciousness  by  simply  aping  his  language,  one 
must  also  be  able  to  think  in  his  fashion.  He  would 
have  understood  me  perfectly  had  I  really  regretted 
the  tobacco,  and  been  offended  and  burst  into  tears. 
That  is  why  nothing  can  replace  the  mother  in  educa- 
tion, because  she  is  able  to  feel  and  weep  and  laugh 
with  her  children.  Nothing  can  be  accomplished  by 
logic  and  ethics.  Well,  what  shall  I  say  to  him? 
What?" 

And  it  seemed  to  Bikofski  laughable  and  strange 
that  an  experienced  student  of  justice  like  himself,  who 
had  spent  half  a  lifetime  in  the  study  of  every  phase  of 
the  prevention  and  punishment  of  crime,  should  find 
himself  completely  at  sea  and  unable  to  think  of  what 
to  say  to  a  boy. 

"Listen!  Give  me  your  word  of  honour  that  you 
won't  smoke  again,"  he  said. 


AT  HOME  35 

"Wo-ord  of  honour!"  sang  Seriozha.  "Wo-ord  of 
ho-nour!  nour!  nour!" 

"  I  wonder  if  he  knows  what  word  of  honour  means?  " 
Bikofski  asked  himself.  "No,  I'm  a  bad  teacher.  If 
one  of  our  educationalists  or  jurists  could  look  into 
my  head  at  this  moment  he  would  call  me  a  muddle- 
head  and  very  likely  accuse  me  of  too  much  subtlety. 
But  the  fact  is,  all  these  confounded  questions  are 
settled  so  much  more  easily  at  school  or  in  court  than 
at  home.  Here,  at  home,  one  has  to  do  with  people 
whom  one  unreasoningly  loves,  and  love  is  exacting 
and  complicates  things.  If  this  child  were  my  pupil 
or  a  prisoner  at  the  bar,  instead  of  being  my  son,  I 
would  not  be  such  a  coward  and  my  thoughts  would 
not  wander  as  they  now  do." 

Bikofski  sat  down  at  the  table  and  drew  toward  him 
one  of  Seriozha's  drawings.  The  picture  represented 
a  crooked-roofed  little  house  with  smoke  coming  hi 
zigzags,  like  lightning,  out  of  the  chimneys  and  rising 
to  the  edge  of  the  paper.  Near  the  house  stood  a 
soldier  with  dots  for  eyes  and  a  bayonet  that  resembled 
the  figure  4. 

"A  man  cannot  possibly  be  higher  than  a  house," 
said  the  lawyer.  "See  here,  your  roof  only  reaches  up 
to  the  soldier's  shoulders." 

Seriozha  climbed  onto  his  father's  lap  and  wriggled 
there  a  long  time  trying  to  get  himself  comfortably 
settled. 

"No,  papa,"  he  said,  contemplating  his  drawing. 


36  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"If  you  made  the  soldier  little,  his  eyes  wouldn't 
show." 

What  need  was  there  to  have  corrected  him?  From 
daily  observation  of  his  son  the  lawyer  had  become 
convinced  that  children,  like  savages,  have  their  own 
artistic  view-point  and  their  own  odd  requirements, 
which  are  beyond  the  scope  of  an  adult  intelligence. 
Under  close  observation,  Seriozha  might  appear  ab- 
normal to  an  adult  because  he  found  it  possible  and 
reasonable  to  draw  a  man  higher  than  a  house,  giving 
his  pencil  his  own  perceptions  as  well  as  a  subject. 
Thus,  the  sounds  of  an  orchestra  he  represented  by 
round,  smoky  spots;  a  whistle,  by  a  twisted  thread; 
in  his  mind,  sound  was  intimately  connected  with  form 
and  colour,  so  that  in  painting  letters  he  invariably 
coloured  the  sound  L,  yellow;  M,  red;  A,  black;  and 
so  forth. 

Throwing  aside  the  drawing,  Seriozha  wriggled  again, 
took  a  convenient  position,  and  turned  his  attention 
to  his  father's  beard.  First  he  smoothed  it  carefully 
and  then  combed  it  apart  in  the  form  of  side  whiskers. 

"Now  you  look  like  Ivan  Stepanovitch,"  he  mur- 
mured, "  and  now  in  a  minute  you're  going  to  look  like 
— our  porter.  Papa,  why  do  porters  stand  at  doors? 
To  keep  robbers  from  coming  in?" 

The  lawyer  felt  the  child's  breath  on  his  face,  the  soft 
hair  brushed  his  cheek,  and  warmth  and  tenderness 
crept  into  his  heart  as  if  his  whole  soul,  and  not  his 
hands  alone,  were  lying  on  the  velvet  of  Seriozha's  tunic. 


AT  HOME  37 

He  looked  into  the  boy's  large,  dark  eyes  and  seemed 
to  see  mother  and  wife  and  everything  he  had  once 
loved  gazing  out  of  those  wide  pupils. 

"How  could  one  whip  him?"  he  thought.  "How 
could  one  bewilder  him  by  punishment?  No,  we 
shouldn't  pretend  to  know  how  to  educate  children. 
People  used  to  be  simpler;  they  thought  less  and  so 
decided  their  problems  more  boldly;  but  we  think  too 
much;  we  are  eaten  up  by  logic.  The  more  enlight- 
ened a  man  is  the  more  he  is  given  to  reflection  and 
hair-splitting;  the  more  undecided  he  is,  the  more  full 
of  scruples,  and  the  more  timidly  he  approaches  a  task. 
And,  seriously  considered,  how  much  bravery,  how 
much  self-reliance  must  a  man  not  have  to  undertake 
teaching,  or  judging,  or  writing  a  big  book!" 

The  clock  struck  ten. 

"Come,  boy,  time  for  bed!"  said  the  lawyer.  "Say 
good  night  and  then  go." 

"No,  papa,"  pouted  Seriozha.  "I  want  to  stay  a 
little  longer.  Tell  me  something;  tell  me  a  story." 

"Very  well;  but  as  soon  as  the  story  is  told — off  we 
go!" 

On  his  free  evenings  the  lawyer  was  in  the  habit  of 
telling  Seriozha  stories.  Like  most  busy  people,  he 
did  not  know  one  piece  of  poetry  by  heart,  neither  could 
he  remember  a  single  story,  so  he  was  forced  to  im- 
provise something  new  every  time.  He  generally  took 
for  his  key-note  "Once  upon  a  time,"  and  then  went 
on  heaping  one  bit  of  innocent  nonsense  on  another, 


38  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

not  knowing,  as  he  told  the  beginning,  what  the  middle 
or  the  end  would  be.  The  scenes,  the  characters,  and 
the  situations  he  would  seize  at  random,  and  the  plot 
and  the  moral  would  trickle  in  of  their  own  accord, 
independent  of  the  will  of  the  story-teller.  Seriozha 
loved  these  improvisations,  and  the  lawyer  noticed 
that  the  more  modest  and  uncomplicated  the  plot 
turned  out  to  be  the  more  deeply  it  affected  the  boy. 

"Listen,"  he  began,  raising  his  eyes  to  the  ceiling. 
"Once  upon  a  time  there  lived  an  old,  a  very  old  king 
who  had  a  long,  grey  beard  and — and — whiskers  as 
long  as  this.  Well,  this  king  lived  in  a  palace  of  crystal 
that  sparkled  and  flashed  in  the  sunlight  like  a  great 
big  block  of  pure  ice.  The  palace,  little  son,  stood  in  a 
great  big  garden,  and  in  this  garden,  you  know,  there 
grew  oranges  and  bergamot  pears  and  wild  cherry- 
trees;  and  tulips  and  roses  and  lilies-of- the- valley  blos- 
somed there  and  bright-coloured  birds  sang.  Yes,  and 
on  the  trees  there  hung  little  crystal  bells  that  rang 
so  sweetly  when  the  wind  blew  that  one  never  grew 
tired  of  listening  to  them.  Crystal  gives  out  a  softer, 
sweeter  tone  than  metal.  Well,  and  what  do  you 
think?  In  that  garden  there  were  fountains.  Don't 
you  remember — you  saw  a  fountain  once  at  Aunt 
Sonia's  summer  house?  Well,  there  were  fountains  just 
like  that  in  the  king's  garden,  only  they  were  ever  so 
much  larger  and  their  spray  reached  right  up  to  the 
tip  of  the  highest  poplar-trees — 

Bikofski  reflected  an  instant  and  continued: 


AT  HOME  39 

"The  old  king  had  only  one  son,  who  was  heir  to 
the  kingdom,  a  little  boy,  just  as  little  as  you  are.  He 
was  a  good  boy;  he  was  never  capricious,  and  he  went 
to  bed  early,  and  never  touched  anything  on  his  fa- 
ther's table — and — and  was  as  nice  as  he  could  be  in 
every  way.  He  had  only  one  failing — he  smoked." 

Seriozha  was  listening  intently,  looking  steadily  into 
his  father's  eyes.  The  lawyer  thought  to  himself: 
"How  shall  I  go  on?"  He  ruminated  for  a  long  time 
and  then  ended  thus: 

"Because  he  smoked,  the  king's  son  fell  ill  of  con- 
sumption and  died  when  he  was  twenty  years  old. 
The  old  man,  decrepit  and  ill,  was  left  without  any  one 
to  take  care  of  him,  and  there  was  no  one  to  govern  the 
kingdom  or  to  protect  the  palace.  Foes  came  and  killed 
the  old  man  and  destroyed  the  palace,  and  now  there 
are  no  wild  cherry-trees  left  in  the  garden,  and  no 
birds  and  no  bells,  and  so,  sonny " 

An  ending  like  this  seemed  to  Bikofski  artless  and 
absurd,  but  the  whole  tale  had  made  a  deep  impres- 
sion on  Seriozha.  Once  more  sadness  and  something 
resembling  terror  crept  into  his  eyes;  he  gazed  for  a 
minute  at  the  dark  window  and  said  in  a  low  voice: 

"I  won't  smoke  any  more " 

When  he  had  said  good  night  and  gone  to  bed,  his 
father  walked  softly  back  and  forth  across  the  floor 
and  smiled. 

"It  will  be  said  that  beauty  and  artistic  form  were 
the  influences  in  this  case,"  he  mused.  "That  may  be 


40  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

so,  but  it  is  no  consolation.  After  all,  those  are  not 
genuine  means  of  influence.  Why  is  it  that  morals 
and  truth  must  not  be  presented  in  their  raw  state  but 
always  in  a  mixture,  sugar-coated  and  gilded,  like  pills? 
It  is  not  right.  That  sort  of  thing  is  f  alsification,  trick- 
ery, deceit " 

He  remembered  the  jurymen  who  invariably  had  to 
be  harangued  in  an  "address";  the  public  who  rould 
only  assimilate  history  by  means  of  legends  and  his- 
torical novels  and  poems. 

"Medicine  must  be  sweet,  truth  must  be  beautiful; 
this  has  been  man's  folly  since  the  days  of  Adam.  Be- 
sides, it  may  all  be  quite  natural,  and  perhaps  it  is  as 
it  should  be.  Nature  herself  has  many  tricks  of  ex- 
pediency and  many  deceptions " 

He  sat  down  to  his  work,  but  the  idle,  homelike 
thoughts  long  continued  to  flit  through  his  brain. 
The  scales  could  no  longer  be  heard  overhead,  but  the 
dweller  on  the  second  floor  still  continued  to  walk 
back  and  forth. 


CHAMPAGNE 

IN  the  year  in  which  my  story  begins  I  was  work- 
ing as  station-master  at  a  little  flag-station  on  one 
of  our  southwestern  railways.  Whether  my  life  there 
was  gay  or  tedious  you  can  decide  for  yourself  when  I 
tell  you  that  there  was  not  one  human  habitation  within 
twenty  miles  of  the  place,  not  one  woman,  not  one  re- 
spectable dram-shop,  and  I  was  young  and  strong  at 
that  time,  ardent  and  hot-headed  and  foolish.  My 
only  distractions  were  seeing  the  windows  of  the  pas- 
senger-trains and  drinking  foul  vodka,  which  the  Jews 
adulterated  with  thorn-apple.  It  happened,  sometimes, 
that  a  woman's  head  would  flash  by  at  a  car-window, 
and  then  I  would  stand  as  still  as  a  statue,  holding  my 
breath,  staring  after  the  train  until  it  changed  into 
an  almost  imperceptible  dot.  Or  sometimes  I  would 
drink  myself  tight  on  the  sickening  vodka  and  remain 
unconscious  of  the  flight  of  the  long  hours  and  days. 
On  me,  a  son  of  the  North,  the  steppes  had  the  same 
effect  as  the  sight  of  a  neglected  Tartar  cemetery.  In 
summer  the  solemn  peace,  the  monotonous,  strident 
chirping  of  the  grasshoppers,  the  clear  moonlight  nights 
from  which  there  was  no  concealment  wrought  in  me 
a  mournful  sadness;  in  winter  the  immaculate  whiteness 
of  the  plains,  their  cold  remoteness,  the  long  nights, 
41 


42  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

and  the  howling  of  the  wolves  oppressed  me  like  a 
painful  nightmare. 

There  were  several  of  us  living  at  the  little  station — 
my  wife  and  I,  a  deaf  and  scrofulous  telegraph-operator, 
and  three  watchmen.  My  assistant,  a  consumptive 
young  man,  went  often  to  the  city  for  treatment,  and 
there  he  would  stay  for  months  at  a  time,  leaving  me 
his  duties  as  well  as  the  right  to  his  salary.  I  had  no 
children,  and  nothing  on  earth  could  tempt  a  guest  to 
stay  with  us.  I  myself  could  never  visit  any  one  ex- 
cept my  fellow  employees  along  the  line,  and  this  I 
could  only  do  once  every  month.  On  the  whole,  it 
was  a  very  tedious  existence. 

I  remember,  my  wife  and  I  were  waiting  to  see  the 
New  Year  in.  We  sat  at  the  table  munching  lazily, 
listening  to  the  deaf  telegraph-operator  as  he  monoto- 
nously hammered  his  instrument  in  an  adjoining  room. 

I  had  already  had  five  glasses  of  vodka  with  thorn- 
apple  and  sat  with  my  heavy  head  in  my  hands, 
thinking  about  this  unconquerable,  this  inevitable 
tedium.  My  wife  sat  beside  me  with  her  eyes  fixed  on 
my  face.  She  was  gazing  at  me  as  only  a  woman 
gazes  for  whom  nothing  exists  on  earth  but  her  good- 
looking  husband.  She  loved  me  madly,  servilely;  she 
loved  not  only  my  good  looks  but  my  sins  and  my 
wickedness  and  my  sadness,  and  even  the  cruelty  with 
which  I  tormented  her,  heaping  reproaches  on  her  in 
my  drunken  wanderings,  not  knowing  on  whom  to  vent 
my  spleen. 


CHAMPAGNE  43 

Notwithstanding  that  this  melancholy  was  eating 
into  my  soul,  we  were  preparing  to  welcome  the  New 
Year  with  unwonted  solemnity  and  were  waiting  with 
considerable  impatience  for  midnight. 

The  fact  was,  we  had  saved  up  two  bottles  of  cham- 
pagne, champagne  of  the  real  sort,  with  the  label 
"Veuve  Clicquot"  on  the  bottle.  I  had  won  this 
treasure  that  autumn  in  a  bet  at  a  christening  party. 
It  sometimes  happens  that  during  an  arithmetic  lesson, 
when  the  very  atmosphere  seems  heavy  with  tedium,  a 
butterfly  will  flutter  into  the  classroom  from  out-of- 
doors.  Then  the  urchins  will  all  crane  their  necks  and 
follow  its  flight  with  curiosity,  as  if  they  saw  before 
them  something  strange  and  new  and  not  simply  a 
butterfly.  We  were  amused  in  just  such  a  way  by  this 
ordinary  champagne  which  had  dropped  by  chance 
into  the  midst  of  our  dull  life  at  the  station.  We  said 
not  a  word  and  kept  looking  first  at  the  clock  and  then 
at  the  bottles. 

When  the  hands  pointed  to  five  minutes  to  twelve  I 
slowly  began  to  uncork  one  of  the  bottles.  Whether 
I  was  weak  from  the  effects  of  the  vodka  or  whether 
the  bottle  was  moist,  I  know  not;  I  only  remember 
that  when  the  cork  flew  up  to  the  ceiling  with  a  pop 
the  bottle  slipped  from  my  hands  and  fell  to  the  floor. 
Not  more  than  half  a  glassful  of  wine  was  spilled,  for 
I  was  able  to  catch  the  bottle  and  to  stop  its  fizzing 
mouth  with  my  finger. 

"Well,  a  happy  New  Year!"  I  cried,  pouring  out 
two  glasses.  "Drink!" 


44  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

My  wife  took  the  glass  and  stared  at  me  with  startled 
eyes.  Her  face  had  grown  pale  and  was  stamped  with 
horror. 

"Did  you  drop  the  bottle?"  she  asked. 

"Yes;  what  of  it?" 

"That  is  bad,"  she  said,  setting  down  her  glass. 
"It  is  a  bad  omen.  It  means  that  some  disaster  will 
befall  us  this  year." 

"What  a  peasant  you  are!"  I  sighed.  "You  are  an 
intelligent  woman,  but  you  rave  like  an  old  nurse. 
Drink!" 

"God  grant  I  may  be  raving,  but — something  will 
surely  happen.  You'll  see." 

She  did  not  finish  her  glass  but  went  off  to  one 
side  and  lost  herself  in  thought.  I  made  a  few  time- 
honoured  remarks  on  the  subject  of  superstition,  drank 
half  the  bottle,  walked  back  and  forth  across  the  room, 
and  went  out. 

The  silent,  frosty  night  reigned  outside  in  all  its 
cold  and  lonely  beauty.  The  moon  and  two  downy 
white  clouds  hung  motionless  in  the  zenith  over  the 
station,  as  if  they  were  glued  to  the  sky  and  were 
waiting  for  something.  They  shed  a  faint,  diaphanous 
light  that  touched  the  white  earth  tenderly,  as  if  fear- 
ing to  offend  its  modesty,  and  lit  up  everything — the 
snow-drifts  and  the  embankment.  The  air  was  very 
still. 

I  walked  along  the  embankment. 

"A  silly  woman!"  I  thought,  looking  at  the  heavens, 
which  were  strewn  with  brilliant  stars.  "Even  if  one 


CHAMPAGNE  45 

admits  that  omens  sometimes  come  true,  what  disaster 
could  befall  us?  The  misfortunes  which  we  have  en- 
countered and  which  are  now  upon  us  are  so  great  that 
it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  anything  worse.  What 
further  harm  can  be  done  to  a  fish  after  it  has  been 
caught,  roasted,  and  served  up  with  sauce  at  table?" 

A  poplar  covered  with  snow  looked,  in  the  bluish 
mist,  like  a  giant  in  a  winding-sheet.  It  gazed  aus- 
terely and  sadly  at  me,  as  if,  like  myself,  it  knew  its 
own  loneliness.  I  looked  at  it  a  long  time. 

"My  youth  has  been  cast  aside  like  a  useless  cigar 
stump,"  I  pursued  the  thread  of  my  thoughts.  "My 
parents  died  when  I  was  a  child;  I  was  taken  away 
from  school.  I  am  gently  bred,  and  yet  I  have  had  no 
better  education  than  a  labourer.  I  have  no  home,  no 
kindred,  no  friends,  no  favourite  occupation.  I  am  not 
capable  of  anything,  and  at  the  height  of  my  powers 
I  am  only  fit  to  fill  the  position  of  station-master.  Be- 
sides being  a  failure,  I  am  poor  and  have  been  poor  all 
my  life.  What  further  misfortune  could  befall  me?" 

A  ruddy  light  appeared  in  the  distance.  A  train  was 
coming  toward  me.  The  awakening  plains  heard  the 
noise  of  it.  My  meditations  had  been  so  bitter  that 
it  seemed  to  me  as  if  I  had  been  thinking  aloud  and 
that  the  moan  of  the  telegraph  wires  and  the  roar  of  the 
train  were  the  voice  of  my  thoughts. 

"What  further  misfortune  could  befall  me?  The 
loss  of  my  wife?"  I  asked  myself.  "Even  that  would 
not  be  terrible.  I  cannot  conceal  it  from  myself:  I 
do  not  love  her!  I  married  her  when  I  was  still  a  boy. 


46  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

Now  I  am  young  and  strong,  and  she  has  grown  thin 
and  old  and  stupid  and  is  crammed  with  superstitions 
from  her  head  to  her  heels.  What  is  there  beautiful 
in  her  mawkish  love,  her  sunken  chest,  her  faded  eyes? 
I  endure  her,  but  I  do  not  love  her.  What  could 
happen?  My  youth  will  go,  as  they  say,  for  a  pinch 
of  snuff.  Women  only  flash  by  me  in  the  car-windows 
like  shooting  stars.  I  have  no  love  now  and  have 
never  known  it.  My  manhood,  my  courage,  all  will 
be  lost.  All  will  be  thrown  away  like  so  much  litter, 
and  what  riches  I  have  are  not  worth  one  copper 
farthing  here  on  these  plains." 

The  train  flew  noisily  by  me,  and  its  lights  shone  on 
me  unconcernedly  out  of  the  ruddy  windows.  I  saw 
it  halt  near  the  green  station  lamps;  it  stopped  there 
for  a  minute  and  then  rolled  on.  After  I  had  walked 
for  two  miles  I  turned  homeward.  My  sad  thoughts 
still  pursued  me.  Bitter  as  my  mood  was,  I  remember 
I  seemed  to  try  to  make  myself  gloomier  and  sadder. 
Shallow,  self-centred  people,  you  know,  have  moments 
when  the  consciousness  that  they  are  unhappy  gives 
them  a  certain  pleasure,  and  they  will  even  coquet 
with  their  own  sufferings.  There  was  much  that  was 
just  in  my  reflections  and  also  much  that  was  con- 
ceited and  foolish,  and  there  was  something  childish 
in  the  challenge:  "What  further  misfortune  could  be- 
fall me?" 

"Yes,  what  could  befall  me?"  I  asked  myself  as  I 
walked  homeward.  "It  seems  to  me  that  I  have  lived 


CHAMPAGNE  47 

through  everything.  I  have  been  ill.  I  have  lost  my 
money.  I  am  reprimanded  every  day  by  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  railway.  I  am  starving,  and  a  mad  wolf 
has  run  into  the  station  yard.  What  else  could  hap- 
pen? I  have  been  degraded  and  wronged,  and  I,  too, 
have  wronged  others.  There  is  only  one  thing  that 
I  have  not  done.  I  have  never  committed  a  crime, 
and  I  believe  I  am  incapable  of  it;  I  am  afraid  of  the 
law." 

The  two  clouds  had  quitted  the  mooa  and  were 
sailing  at  a  distance  with  an  air  of  whispering  together 
about  something  which  the  moon  must  not  hear.  A 
light  breeze  skimmed  across  the  plains,  carrying  the 
faint  sound  of  the  departing  train. 

My  wife  met  me  at  the  threshold  of  our  house.  Her 
eyes  were  smiling  merrily,  and  delight  shone  from  her 
whole  face. 

"I  have  news!"  she  whispered.  "Go  quickly  to 
your  room  and  put  on  your  new  coat;  we  have  a 
guest!" 

"What  guest?" 

"My  aunt  Natalia  Petrovna  has  just  come  in  on  the 
train." 

"Which  Natalia  Petrovna?" 

"My  uncle  Simeon's  wife.  You  don't  know  her. 
She  is  very  kind  and  very  pretty." 

I  must  have  frowned,  for  my  wife's  face  grew  sud- 
denly serious,  and  she  whispered  quickly: 

"Of  course,  it  is  strange  that  she  should  have  come, 


48  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

but  don't  be  angry,  Nicolas;  make  allowances  for  her. 
You  see,  she  Is  unfortunate.  My  uncle  is  really  a 
tyrant  and  very  bad-tempered,  and  it  is  hard  to  live 
in  peace  with  him.  She  says  she  is  only  going  to  stay 
with  us  three  days,  until  she  hears  from  her  brother." 

My  wife  whispered  a  lot  more  nonsense  about  her 
tyrannical  uncle,  about  the  weakness  of  human  beings 
in  general  and  of  young  women  in  particular,  about  its 
being  our  duty  to  shelter  every  one,  even  sinners,  and 
so  on.  Without  comprehending  a  thing,  I  donned  my 
new  coat  and  went  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  my 
"aunt." 

A  little  woman  with  large  black  eyes  was  sitting  at 
the  table.  Our  board,  the  grey  walls,  the  rough  otto- 
man, everything  down  to  the  least  grain  of  dust  seemed 
to  have  become  younger  and  gayer  in  the  presence  of 
this  fresh  young  being,  exhaling  some  strange  perfume, 
beautiful  and  depraved.  That  our  guest  was  depraved 
I  knew  from  her  smile,  from  her  perfume,  from  the 
particular  way  she  had  of  glancing  and  of  using  her 
eyelashes,  and  from  the  tone  in  which  she  addressed 
my  wife,  a  respectable  woman.  There  was  no  need 
for  her  to  tell  me  that  she  had  run  away  from  her 
husband,  that  he  was  old  and  tyrannical,  that  she  was 
merry  and  kind.  I  understood  everything  at  her  first 
glance;  there  are  few  men  in  Europe  who  cannot 
recognise  a  woman  of  a  certain  temperament  on  sight. 

"I  did  not  know  I  had  such  a  big  nephew,"  said  my 
aunt,  holding  out  her  hand  to  me. 


CHAMPAGNE  49 

"And  I  didn't  know  I  had  such  a  pretty  aunt," 
said  I. 

We  recommenced  our  supper.  The  cork  flew  with  a 
pop  from  the  second  bottle  of  champagne,  and  my  aunt 
drank  half  a  glass  at  a  draught.  When  my  wife  left 
the  room  for  a  moment  she  was  under  no  restraint 
and  finished  the  rest  of  it.  The  wine  and  the  presence 
of  the  woman  went  to  my  head.  Do  you  remember 
the  words  of  the  song: 

"Eyes  passionate  and  darkling, 
Eyes  beautiful  and  sparkling, 
Oh,  but  I  love  you! 
Oh,  but  I  fear  you!" 

I  do  not  remember  what  happened  next.  If  any  one 
wants  to  know  how  love  begins  let  him  read  romances 
and  novels;  I  shall  only  say  a  little,  and  that  in  the 
words  of  the  same  foolish  song: 

"When  I  first  saw  you, 
Evil  was  the  hour — " 

Everything  went  head  over  heels  to  the  devil.  I 
remember  a  terrible,  mad  hurricane  that  whirled  me 
away  like  a  leaf.  For  a  long  time  it  whirled  me,  and 
wiped  off  the  earth  my  wife  and  my  aunt  and  my 
strength.  From  a  little  station  on  the  plains  it  cast 
me,  as  you  see,  onto  this  dark  street. 

Now  tell  me,  what  further  misfortune  could  befall 
me? 


THE  MALEFACTOR 

A  TINY,  very  thin  little  peasant  stood  before  the 
examining  magistrate.  He  wore  a  striped  shirt 
and  patched  trousers;  his  shaggy  beard,  his  pock- 
marked face,  his  eyes  scarcely  visible  under  their 
bushy,  overhanging  brows  gave  him  a  harsh  and  for- 
bidding expression,  to  which  a  mane  of  matted,  un- 
kempt hair  added  a  spider-like  ferocity.  He  was  bare- 
foot. 

"Denis  Grigorieff,"  began  the  magistrate,  "come 
nearer  and  answer  my  questions.  While  patrolling 
the  track  on  the  seventh  of  last  July,  Ivan  Akinfoff ,  the 
railroad  watchman,  found  you  at  the  one  hundred  and 
forty-first  verst  unscrewing  one  of  the  nuts  that  fasten 
the  rails  to  the  ties.  Here  is  the  nut  you  had  when  he 
arrested  you.  Is  this  true?" 

"What's  that?" 

"Did  everything  happen  as  Akinfoff  reports?" 

"Yes;  just  as  he  reports." 

"  Very  well.  Now,  what  was  your  object  in  unscrew- 
ing that  nut?" 

"What's  that?" 

"Stop  your  'What's  that?'  and  answer  my  question; 
why  did  you  unscrew  that  nut?" 
60 


THE  MALEFACTOR  51 

"If  I  hadn't  needed  the  nut  I  wouldn't  have  un- 
screwed it,"  grunted  Denis,  glancing  at  the  ceiling. 

"What  did  you  need  it  for?" 

"What  for?    We  make  sinkers  out  of  nuts." 

"Whom  do  you  mean  by  'we'?" 

"We— the  people,  the  peasants  of  Klimoff." 

"Look  here,  man,  no  playing  the  idiot!  Talk  sense, 
and  don't  lie  to  me  about  sinkers!" 

"I  never  lied  in  my  life,"  muttered  Denis,  blinking. 
"How  can  one  possibly  fish  without  sinkers,  your 
honour?  If  you  baited  your  hook  with  a  shiner  or  a 
roach,  do  you  think  it  would  sink  to  the  bottom  with- 
out a  sinker?  You  tell  me  I  am  lying ! "  laughed  Denis. 
"A  fine  bait  a  shiner  would  make,  floating  on  the  top 
of  the  water!  Bass  and  pike  and  eels  always  take 
ground  bait;  a  floating  bait  would  only  be  taken  by  a 
garfish,  and  they  won't  often  take  it.  Anyway,  we 
haven't  any  garfish  in  our  river;  they  like  the  open." 

"Why  are  you  talking  to  me  about  garfish?" 

"What's  that?  Didn't  you  ask  me  about  fishing? 
All  the  gentlemen  with  us  fish  like  that.  The  smallest 
boy  knows  more  than  to  fish  without  a  sinker.  Of 
course,  there  are  some  people  who  don't  know  anything, 
and  they  go  fishing  without  sinkers.  Fools  obey  no 
laws." 

"So  you  tell  me  you  unscrewed  this  nut  to  use  as  a 
weight?" 

"What  else  should  I  have  unscrewed  it  for?  To 
play  knuckle-bones  with?" 


52  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"But  you  might  have  made  a  weight  out  of  a  piece 
of  lead  or  a  bullet  or  a  nail  or  something." 

"Lead  does  not  grow  on  every  bush;  it  has  to  be 
bought;  and  a  nail  wouldn't  do.  There  is  nothing  so 
good  to  make  a  weight  of  as  a  nut.  It  is  heavy  and 
has  a  hole  in  it." 

"What  a  fool  he  is  pretending  to  be!  You  act  as 
if  you  were  one  day  old  or  had  just  dropped  from  the 
clouds.  Don't  you  see,  you  donkey,  what  the  conse- 
quences of  this  unscrewing  must  be?  If  the  watch- 
man hadn't  found  you,  one  of  the  trains  might  have 
run  off  the  track  and  killed  everybody,  and  you  would 
have  killed  them!" 

"God  forbid,  your  honour!  Do  you  think  we  are 
wicked  heathen?  Praise  be  to  God,  kind  master,  not 
only  have  we  never  killed  anybody,  we  have  never  even 
thought  of  it!  Holy  Mother  preserve  us  and  have 
mercy  upon  us!  How  can  you  say  such  things?" 

Denis  smirked  and  winked  incredulously  at  the 
magistrate.  "Huh!  For  how  many  years  has  the 
whole  village  been  unscrewing  nuts,  and  not  an  ac- 
cident yet?  If  I  were  to  carry  a  rail  away,  or  even  to 
put  a  log  across  the  track,  then,  perhaps,  the  train 
might  upset,  but,  Lord!  a  nut — pooh!" 

"But  can't  you  understand  that  the  nuts  fasten  the 
rails  to  the  ties?" 

"Yes,  we  understand  that,  and  so  we  don't  unscrew 
them  all;  we  always  leave  some;  we  do  it  carefully; 
we  understand." 


THE  MALEFACTOR  53 

Denis  yawned  and  made  the  sign  of  the  cross  over 
his  mouth. 

"A  train  ran  off  the  track  not  far  from  here  last 
year,"  said  the  magistrate.  "Now  I  know  why." 

"What  did  you  say?" 

"Now,  I  say,  I  know  why  that  train  ran  off  the 
track  last  year." 

"Yes;  you  have  been  educated  to  know  these  things, 
kind  master;  you  can  understand  just  why  everything 
is;  but  that  watchman  is  a  peasant  who  doesn't  know 
anything;  he  just  grabbed  me  by  the  coat  collar  and 
dragged  me  away.  One  ought  to  judge  first  and  drag 
afterward.  But  a  peasant  has  the  sense  of  a  peasant. 
You  might  write  down,  your  honour,  that  he  hit  me 
twice — in  the  mouth  and  in  the  chest." 

"Another  nut  was  found  when  your  house  was 
searched.  Where  did  you  unscrew  that  one,  and 
when? " 

"Do  you  mean  the  nut  that  was  lying  under  the 
little  red  chest?" 

"I  haven't  any  idea  where  it  was  lying,  but  it  was 
found.  Where  did  you  unscrew  it?" 

"I  didn't  unscrew  it;  it  was  given  to  me  by  Ignashka, 
the  son  of  one-eyed  Simon.  That  is,  I  am  speaking 
of  the  nut  under  the  little  chest;  the  one  in  the  sleigh 
in  the  courtyard,  Mitrofan  and  I  unscrewed  together." 

"  Which  Mitrofan?" 

"Mitrofan  Petroff.  Haven't  you  heard  of  him? 
He's  the  man  that  makes  fishing-nets  and  sells  them 


54  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

to  the  gentlemen.  He  needs  a  lot  of  nuts  in  his  busi- 
ness— a  dozen  to  every  net." 

"Listen!  In  Article  1081  of  the  Code  it  says  that 
*  Whoever  intentionally  commits  an  act  of  injury  to 
a  railroad,  whereby  an  accident  might  result  to  the 
trains,  and  who  knows  that  such  an  accident  might 
result' — do  you  hear  that?  'who  knows' — ' shall:  be 
severely  punished.'  You  could  not  but  have  known 
what  this  unscrewing  would  lead  to.  The  sentence  is 
exile  and  hard  labour." 

"Of  course,  you  know  that  better  than  I  do.  We 
people  live  in  darkness.  How  can  we  know  such 
things?" 

"You  know  all  about  it  perfectly  well.  You  are 
lying  and  shamming  ignorance." 

"Why  should  I  lie?  Ask  anybody  in  the  village 
if  you  don't  believe  me.  They  never  catch  a  thing 
but  roach  without  a  sinker;  even  gudgeons  hardly  ever 
bite  unless  you  use  one." 

"Now  you  are  going  to  begin  on  those  garfish  again!" 
smiled  the  magistrate. 

"We  don't  have  garfish  in  our  river.  If  we  let  the 
bait  float  on  the  top  without  a  sinker  we  sometimes 
catch  a  perch,  but  not  often." 

"Oh,  stop  talking!" 

Silence  fell.  Denis  stood  first  on  one  leg  and  then  on 
the  other  and  stared  at  the  table,  winking  rapidly  as 
if  he  saw  the  sun  before  his  eyes  and  not  a  green  table- 
cover.  The  magistrate  was  writing  quickly. 


THE  MALEFACTOR  55 

"I  shall  have  to  arrest  you  and  send  you  to  prison." 

Denis  stopped  winking,  raised  his  heavy  eyebrows, 
and  looked  inquiringly  at  the  magistrate. 

"How  do  you  mean — to  prison?  Your  honour,  I 
haven't  time!  I  have  to  go  to  the  fair  to  collect  the 
three  roubles  that  Gregory  owes  me  for  tallow." 

"  Stop  talking !     Don't  interrupt ! " 

"To  prison!  If  there  was  any  reason,  of  course  I'd 
go,  but,  living  as  I  do — what  is  it  for?  I  haven't 
robbed  any  one;  I  haven't  even  -been  fighting.  If  it's 
the  payment  of  my  rent  you  are  thinking  about,  you 
mustn't  believe  what  the  bailiff  says,  your  honour.  Ask 
any  one  of  the  gentlemen;  that  bailiff  is  a  thief,  sir!" 

"Stop  talking!" 

"I'll  stop,"  mumbled  Denis.  "All  the  same,  I'll 
swear  under  oath  that  the  bailiff  has  muddled  his 
books.  There  are  three  brothers  in  our  family — Kuzma 
and  Gregory  and  I " 

"You  are  interrupting  me.  Here,  Simon!"  called 
the  magistrate,  "take  this  man  away." 

"There  are  three  brothers  in  our  family,"  murmured 
Denis  as  two  strapping  soldiers  took  hold  of  him  and 
led  him  out  of  the  room.  "I  can't  be  responsible  for 
my  brother.  Kuzma  won't  pay  his  debts,  and  I,  Denis, 
have  to  suffer!  You  call  yourselves  judges!  If  our 
old  master,  the  general,  were  alive  he  would  teach  you 
judges  your  business.  You  ought  to  be  reasonable, 
and  not  condemn  so  wildly.  Flog  a  man  if  he  deserves 
it " 


MURDER  WILL  OUT 

BEHIND  three  native  horses,  preserving  the 
strictest  incognito,  Peter  Posudin  was  hurrying 
along  by  back  roads  to  the  little  county  town  of 
N ,  whither  he  had  been  summoned  by  an  anony- 
mous letter. 

"I'm  hidden;  I've  vanished  like  smoke — "  he 
mused,  burying  his  face  in  the  collar  of  his  coat.  "  Hav- 
ing hatched  their  dirty  plots,  those  low  brutes  are 
now,  no  doubt,  patting  themselves  on  the  back  at  the 
thought  of  how  cleverly  they  have  covered  their  tracks 
— ha!  ha!  I  can  just  see  their  horror  and  surprise 
as,  at  the  height  of  their  triumph,  they  hear:  'Bring 
Liapkin  Tiapkin  to  me.'  *  What  a  rumpus  there  will 
be!  Ha!  ha!" 

When  he  had  wearied  of  musing,  Posudin  entered 
into  conversation  with  his  driver.  As  a  man  will  who 
has  a  thirst  for  renown,  he  first  of  all  inquired  about 
himself. 

"Tell  me,  do  you  know  who  Posudin  is?"  he  asked. 

"How  should  I  not  know?"  grinned  the  driver. 
"We  know  who  he  is." 

"What  makes  you  laugh?" 

*  Liapkin  Tiapkin:  one  of  the  characters  in  Gogol's  "Inspector 
General." 

56 


MURDER  WILL  OUT  57 

"It's  so  funny.  To  think  of  not  knowing  who  Po- 
sudin  is,  when  one  knows  every  little  clerk!  That's 
what  he's  here  for,  to  be  known  by  every  one." 

"Very  well — and  what  do  you  think  of  him?  Is  he 
a  good  man?" 

"Not  bad,"  yawned  the  peasant.  "He's  a  good 
gentleman;  he  understands  his  business.  It  isn't  two 
years  yet  since  he  was  sent  here,  and  he  has  already 
done  things." 

"What  has  he  done,  exactly?" 

"He  has  done  a  lot  of  good,  the  Lord  bless  him.  He 
has  brought  the  railroad  in  and  has  sent  Hohrinkoff 
out  of  our  county.  That  Hohrinkoff  was  too  much; 
he  was  a  rascal  and  a  fox.  The  former  ones  have  al- 
ways played  into  his  hand,  but,  when  Posudin  came, 
away  went  Hohrinkoff  to  the  devil  as  if  he  had  never 
existed.  Yes,  sir!  Posudin  you  never  could  bribe — 
no,  sir!  If  you  were  to  give  him  a  hundred,  a  thousand 
roubles,  you  couldn't  get  him  to  saddle  his  conscience 
with  a  sin.  No,  indeed!" 

"Thank  Heaven,  at  least  I  am  understood  in  that 
quarter!"  exulted  Posudin.  "That's  splendid!" 

"He's  a  well-mannered  gentleman.  Some  of  our 
men  went  to  him  once  with  some  grievances  and  he 
treated  them  exactly  as  if  they  had  been  gentlemen. 
He  shook  hands  with  them  all  and  said:  'Please  be 
seated.'  He's  a  quick,  hot-headed  kind  of  a  gentle- 
man; he  never  takes  time  to  talk  quietly;  it's  always — 
snort!  snort!  As  for  walking  at  a  foot-pace,  Lord,  no! 


58  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

He's  always  on  the  run — on  the  run.  Our  men  had 
hardly  time  to  get  out  a  word  before  he  had  called  out: 
'My  carriage!'  and  had  come  straight  over  here.  He 
came,  and  settled  everything,  and  never  even  took  a 
copeck.  He's  a  thousand  times  better  than  the  last 
one,  though,  of  course,  that  one  was  good,  too.  He  was 
fine  and  important-looking,  and  no  one  in  the  whole 
county  could  shout  louder  than  he  could.  When  he 
was  on  the  road  you  could  hear  him  for  ten  miles,  but 
when  it  comes  to  business  the  present  one  is  a  thousand 
times  sharper.  The  present  one  has  a  brain  in  his 
head  one  hundred  times  as  large  as  the  other.  He's  a 
fine  man  in  every  way;  there's  only  one  trouble  about 
him — he's  a  drunkard!" 

"The  devil!"  thought  Posudin. 

"How  do  you  know,"  he  asked,  "that  I— that  he  is 
a  drunkard?" 

"Oh,  of  course,  your  honour,  I  have  never  seen  him 
drunk  myself.  I'll  not  say  what's  not  true,  but  peo- 
ple have  told  me — and  they  haven't  seen  him  drunk, 
either;  but  that  is  what  is  said  about  him.  In  public, 
or  when  he  is  visiting,  or  at  a  ball,  or  in  company  he 
never  drinks;  it's  at  home  that  he  soaks.  He  gets  up 
in  the  morning,  rubs  his  eyes,  and  his  first  thought  is 
vodka!  His  valet  brings  him  one  glass  and  he  at  once 
asks  for  another,  and  so  he  keeps  pouring  it  down  all 
day.  And  I'll  tell  you  a  funny  thing:  for  all  that 
drinking  he  never  turns  a  hair!  He  must  know  how 
to  keep  an  eye  on  himself.  When  our  Hohrinkoff  used 


MURDER  WILL  OUT  59 

to  drink,  not  only  the  people,  even  the  dogs  would 
howl;  but  Posudin — his  nose  doesn't  even  turn  red! 
He  shuts  himself  up  in  his  study  and  laps.  He  has 
arranged  a  little  kind  of  box  on  his  table  with  a  tube, 
so  that  no  one  can  know  what  he's  up  to,  and  this  box 
he  keeps  full  of  vodka.  All  one  has  to  do  is  to  stoop 
down  to  the  little  tube,  suck,  and  get  drunk.  And  out 
driving,  too,  in  his  portfolio " 

"How  do  they  know  that?"  thought  the  horror- 
stricken  Posudin.  "Good  Lord,  even  that  is  known! 
How  perfectly  awful!" 

"And  then,  with  the  female  sex,  too,  he's  a  rascal!" 
The  driver  laughed  and  wagged  his  head.  "It's  a 
scandal,  it  is!  He  has  a  bunch  of  ten  of  them.  Two 
of  them  live  in  his  house.  One  is  Nastasia  Ivanovna; 
he  has  her  for  a  sort  of  a  housekeeper;  another  is — 
what  the  devil  is  her  name? — oh,  yes,  Liudmila  Se- 
mionovna.  She's,  as  it  were,  his  secretary.  The 
head  of  them  all  is  Nastasia.  She  has  a  great  deal 
of  power;  people  aren't  nearly  as  much  afraid  of  him 
as  they  are  of  her.  Ha!  ha!  The  third  scatterbrain 
lives  on  Katchalna  Street.  It's  disgraceful." 

"He  even  knows  them  by  name,"  thought  Posudin, 
turning  scarlet.  "And  who  is  this  that  knows?  A 
peasant,  a  carrier  who  has  never  even  been  to  the  city. 
Oh,  how  abominable !  How  disgusting!  How  vulgar!" 

"How  did  you  find  all  this  out?"  he  asked  irritably. 

"  People  have  told  me.  I  haven't  seen  it  myself,  but 
I  have  heard  of  it  from  people.  Is  it  so  hard  to  find 


60  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

out?  You  can't  stop  the  mouth  of  a  valet  or  a  coach- 
man, and  then,  probably,  Nastasia  herself  goes  up  and 
down  all  the  side  streets  boasting  of  her  good  luck  to 
the  women.  No  one  can  hide  from  human  eyes.  An- 
other thing,  this  Posudin  has  got  a  way  now  of  making 
his  trips  of  inspection  in  secret.  In  the  old  days,  when 
he  decided  to  go  anywhere,  he  used  to  make  it  known 
a  month  beforehand,  and  there'd  be  such  a  rowing 
and  thundering  and  ringing  when  he  went — the  Lord 
preserve  us !  He'd  have  men  galloping  ahead  and  men 
galloping  behind  and  men  galloping  on  either  side. 
When  he  reached  the  place  he  was  bound  for  he  would 
take  a  nap  and  eat  and  drink  his  fill  and  then  begin 
bawling  his  official  business.  He'd  bawl  and  stamp  his 
feet  and  then  take  another  nap,  and  go  back  in  the 
same  way  he  came.  But  now  when  anything  comes 
to  his  ears  he  watches  for  a  chance  to  go  off  like  a 
flash,  secretly,  so  that  no  one  shall  see  or  know.  Oh, 
it's  a  joke!  He  slips  out  of  his  house,  so  the  officials 
won't  see  him,  and  into  the  train.  When  he  reaches 
the  station  he's  going  to  he  doesn't  take  post-horses 
or  anything  high  class  but  hustles  round  and  hires 
some  peasant  to  drive  him.  He  wraps  himself  all  up 
like  a  woman  and  growls  all  the  way  like  an  old  hound, 
so  that  his  voice  won't  be  recognised.  You'd  split 
your  sides  laughing  to  hear  people  tell  of  it.  The 
donkey  drives  along  and  thinks  no  one  can  tell  who 
he  is.  But  any  one  can  recognise  him  who  has  any 
sense — bah!" 

"How  do  they  recognise  him?" 


MURDER  WILL  OUT  61 

"  It's  very  easy.  In  the  old  days,  when  our  Hohrin- 
koff  used  to  travel  we  used  to  know  him  by  his  heavy 
hands.  If  the  man  you  were  driving  hit  you  on  the 
mouth  it  meant  that  it  was  Hohrinkoff.  But  one 
can  tell  it's  Posudin  at  first  sight.  A  simple  passenger 
acts  simply,  but  Posudin  isn't  the  man  to  care  for 
simplicity.  When  he  reaches,  we'll  say,  a  post-house 
he  begins  right  away.  It's  either  too  smelly  or  too 
hot  or  too  cold;  he  sends  for  young  chickens  and  fruits 
and  jams  of  all  kinds.  That's  how  he's  recognised  at 
the  post-houses;  if  any  one  asks  for  young  chickens 
and  fruit  in  winter,  that's  Posudin.  If  any  one  care- 
fully says, '  My  dear  fellow, '  and  then  makes  every  one 
chase  around  on  all  sorts  of  fool's  errands,  you  can 
swear  to  it  it's  Posudin.  And  he  doesn't  smell  like 
other  people,  and  he  has  his  own  way  of  lying  down 
to  sleep.  At  post-houses  he  lies  down  on  the  sofa, 
squirts  scent  all  about  him,  and  orders  three  candles 
to  be  put  by  his  pillow.  Then  he  lies  down  and  reads 
papers.  Even  a  cat,  let  alone  a  person,  who  sees  that 
can  tell  who  the  man  is." 

"That's  right,"  thought  Posudin.  "Why  didn't  I 
know  that  before?" 

"But,  if  necessary,  he  can  be  recognised  without  the 
fruit  and  the  chickens.  Everything  is  known  by  tele- 
graph. He  can  muffle  up  his  face  there  and  hide  him- 
self all  he  likes;  they  know  here  that  he's  coming. 
They're  expecting  him.  Before  Posudin  has  so  much  as 
left  home,  here,  by  your  leave,  everything  is  ready  for 
him!  He  comes  to  nab  some  man  on  the  spot  and 


62  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

arrest  him,  or  to  discharge  another,  and  here  they  are 
laughing  at  him.  'Yes,  your  Excellency,'  they  say, 
'even  though  you  did  come  unexpectedly,  see,  every- 
thing is  in  order!'  He  turns  round  and  round  and 
finally  goes  off  the  way  he  came.  Yes,  and  he  even 
praises  every  one  and  shakes  hands  all  round  and  begs 
pardon  for  having  disturbed  us.  That's  a  fact!  Didn't 
you  know  that?  Ho!  ho!  Your  Excellency,  we  peo- 
ple are  sharp  here.  Every  one  of  us  is  sharp.  It's  a 
pleasure  to  see  what  devils  we  are!  Take,  for  instance, 
what  happened  to-day.  As  I  was  driving  along  this 
morning  with  an  empty  wagon,  I  saw  the  Jew  restaurant 
keeper  come  flying  toward  me.  'Where  are  you  going, 
your  Jewish  honour?'  says  I.  'I'm  taking  some  wine 

and  some  delicacies  to  the  town  of  N *  says  he. 

'  They're  expecting  Posudin  there  to-day.'  Wasn't  that 
clever?  And  Posudin,  perhaps,  was  only  just  getting 
ready  to  start,  and  perhaps  he  was  muffling  up  his  face 
so  that  no  one  should  know  him.  Perhaps  he  is  on  his 
way  now  and  is  thinking  that  no  one  knows  he  is  com- 
ing; and  yet  there  are  the  wine  and  the  salmon  and 
the  cheese  all  ready  for  him.  What  do  you  think  of 
that?  He  is  thinking  as  he  drives:  'Now,  boys,  you'll 
catch  it!'  And  little  the  boys  are  caring.  They've 
hidden  everything  long  ago." 

"Turn  back!"  cried  Posudin  hoarsely.  "Turn 
round  and  drive  back,  you  beast!" 

And  the  astonished  driver  turned  round  and  drove 
back. 


THE  TROUSSEAU 

MANY  are  the  houses  I  have  seen  in  my  day — big 
ones  and  little  ones,  stone  ones  and  wooden 
ones,  old  ones  and  new  ones,  but,  more  deeply  than  any 
I  have  seen,  one  has  engraved  itself  upon  my  memory. 

It  is  not  really  a  house,  but  a  tiny  cottage  of  one 
low  story  and  three  windows,  and  bears  a  strong  re- 
semblance to  a  little,  old,  hunchbacked  woman  in  a 
nightcap.  Its  stuccoed  walls  are  painted  white,  the 
roof  is  of  tiles  and  the  chimney  dilapidated,  and  it  is 
all  smothered  in  the  foliage  of  mulberries,  acacias,  and 
poplar-trees  planted  there  by  the  grandparents  and 
great-grandparents  of  the  present  inhabitants.  This 
dense  mass  of  verdure  completely  hides  it  from  view 
but  does  not  prevent  it  from  considering  itself  a  lit- 
tle town  house.  Alongside  its  broad  garden  lie  other 
broad,  green  gardens,  and  the  result  is  named  Moscow 
Street. 

The  shutters  of  the  little  house  are  always  closed; 
its  inhabitants  do  not  need  light.  They  have  no  use 
for  it.  The  windows  are  never  opened  because  its  in- 
mates dislike  fresh  air.  People  living  among  mulberry 
trees,  acacias,  and  burdocks  are  indifferent  to  nature; 


64  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

it  is  only  to  summer  visitors  that  God  has  vouchsafed 
a  capacity  for  appreciating  her  beauties.  In  regard  to 
them  the  rest  of  mankind  stagnates  in  profoundest 
ignorance.  People  do  not  value  what  they  are  rich  in. 
We  do  not  care  for  what  we  possess;  we  even  dislike 
it.  Outside  the  house  lay  an  earthly  paradise  of  ver- 
dure inhabited  by  happy  birds;  inside,  alas!  in  sum- 
mer it  was  stifling  and  hot  and  in  winter  warm  as  in 
a  Turkish  bath,  and  tedious,  oh,  so  tedious! 

I  first  visited  the  little  house  on  business  many 
years  ago.  I  brought  a  message  from  its  owner, 
Colonel  Tchikamassoff,  to  his  wife  and  daughter.  I 
remember  the  first  visit  perfectly.  I  could  never  for- 
get it. 

Picture  to  yourself  a  stout  little  lady  of  forty  years 
looking  at  you  with  surprise  and  fear  as  you  enter  the 
parlour  from  the  hall.  You  are  a  "strange  guest,"  a 
"young  man,"  and  this  alone  is  enough  to  arouse 
astonishment  and  terror.  You  do  not  carry  a  cudgel 
or  an  axe  or  a  revolver,  and  you  are  smiling  pleasantly, 
but  you  are  received  with  trepidation. 

"Whom  have  I  the  honour  and  pleasure  of  meet- 
ing?" asks  the  little  lady  in  a  trembling  voice,  and  you 
know  her  to  be  the  wife  of  Tchikamassoff. 

You  introduce  yourself  and  explain  why  you  have 
come.  Surprise  and  fear  end  in  a  shrill  and  joyful  ex- 
clamation which  echoes  from  the  hall  to  the  parlour, 
from  the  parlour  to  the  dining-room,  from  the  dining- 
room  to  the  kitchen,  and  so  into  the  very  cellar.  The 


THE  TROUSSEAU  65 

whole  house  is  soon  filled  with  joyous  little  exclama- 
tions in  various  keys.  Five  minutes  later,  as  you  sit 
in  the  parlour  on  a  large,  soft,  warm  sofa,  you  can  hear 
the  whole  of  Moscow  Street  exclaiming. 

The  air  smelled  of  moth  balls  and  of  a  pah*  of  new  kid 
shoes  that  lay  wrapped  in  a  little  cloth  on  a  chair  be- 
side me.  On  the  window-sills  scraps  of  muslin  lay 
among  the  geranium  pots.  Over  them  crawled  lazy 
flies.  On  the  wall  hung  an  oil-portrait  of  a  bishop, 
covered  with  glass,  of  which  one  corner  was  broken. 
Next  to  the  bishop  hung  a  row  of  ancestors  with 
lemon-yellow,  gipsy-looking  faces.  On  the  table  lay 
a  thimble,  a  spool  of  thread,  and  a  half-darned  stock- 
ing; on  the  floor  lay  dress  patterns  and  a  half -finished 
black  blouse.  In  the  next  room  two  flustered  and 
startled  old  women  were  hastily  gathering  up  scraps 
of  material  from  the  floor. 

"You  must  forgive  this  dreadful  disorder,"  said  the 
old  lady. 

As  she  talked  with  me  she  glanced  in  confusion  at 
the  door  behind  which  the  old  women  were  still  pick- 
ing up  the  scraps  of  cloth.  The  door,  too,  seemed  em- 
barrassed, and  now  opened  a  few  inches,  now  shut 
again. 

"  What  do  you  want?  "  asked  Madame  Tchikamassoff 
of  the  door. 

"Ou  est  mon  cravate,  lequel  mon  pere  m'avait 
envoye  de  Koursk?"  asked  a  soft  little  female  voice 
behind  the  door. 


66  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"Ah,  est  ce  que  Marie,  que — oh,  how  can  you? — 
nous  avons  done  chez  nous  un  homme  tres  peu  connu 
par  nous — ask  Lukeria." 

"How  well  we  talk  French!"  I  read  in  Madame 
Tchikamassoff's  eyes  as  she  blushed  with  pleasure. 

The  door  soon  opened  and  there  appeared  a  tall, 
thin  girl  of  nineteen,  in  a  muslin  dress  with  a  gold  belt, 
from  which  hung,  I  remember,  a  mother-of-pearl  fan. 
She  came  in,  sat  down,  and  blushed.  First  her  long, 
slightly  freckled  nose  blushed;  from  there  the  colour 
spread  to  her  eyes  and  from  her  eyes  to  her  temples. 

"My  daughter,"  said  Madame Tchikamassoff;  "and 
this,  Manetchka,  is  the  young  man  who " 

I  introduced  myself  and  expressed  my  surprise  at 
seeing  so  many  scraps  of  cloth  about.  Mother  and 
daughter  cast  down  their  eyes. 

"We  had  the  fair  here  on  Ascension  Day,"  said  the 
mother,  "and  we  always  buy  all  our  materials  then 
and  sew  all  the  rest  of  the  year  until  the  next  fan*.  We 
never  give  our  sewing  out.  My  Peter  does  not  make 
very  much  and  we  can't  allow  ourselves  any  luxury. 
We  have  to  do  our  own  sewing." 

"But  who  wears  such  quantities  of  clothes?  There 
are  only  two  of  you!" 

"Oh,  do  you  think  we  shall  wear  them?  They  are 
not  to  wear;  this  is — a  trousseau!" 

"Oh,  ma  n KI  n.  how  can  you?  What  are  you  saying?  " 
cried  the  daughter,  flushing.  "He  might  really  think — 
I  shall  never  marry!  Never!" 


THE  TROUSSEAU  67 

She  spoke  thus,  but  at  the  very  word  "marry"  her 
eyes  sparkled. 

Tea  was  brought,  with  biscuits  and  jam  and  butter, 
and  then  I  was  treated  to  raspberries  and  cream.  At 
seven  we  had  a  supper  of  six  courses,  and  during  supper 
I  heard  a  loud  yawn  from  the  next  room.  I  glanced 
at  the  door  with  surprise;  only  a  man  could  have 
yawned  like  that. 

"That  is  Gregory,  my  husband's  brother,"  Madame 
Tchikamassoff  explained,  seeing  my  surprise.  "He 
has  been  living  with  us  since  last  year.  You  must 
excuse  him,  he  can't  come  out  to  see  you;  he  is  a 
great  recluse  and  is  afraid  of  strangers.  He  is  plan- 
ning to  enter  a  monastery.  His  feelings  were  very 
much  hurt  when  in  the  service,  and  so,  from  mortifi- 
cation  " 

After  supper  Madame  Tchikamassoff  showed  me  a 
stole  which  Gregory  had  embroidered  as  an  offering 
for  the  church.  Manetchka  cast  aside  her  timidity 
for  a  moment  and  showed  me  a  tobacco-pouch  which 
she  had  embroidered  for  her  papa.  When  I  pre- 
tended to  be  thunderstruck  by  her  work  she  blushed 
and  whispered  something  in  her  mother's  ear.  The 
mother  beamed  and  invited  me  to  come  with  her  into 
the  linen-closet.  There  I  found  five  large  chests  and  a 
great  quantity  of  small  trunks  and  boxes. 

"This  is — the  trousseau!"  the  mother  whispered. 
"We  made  it  all  ourselves." 

While  still  looking  at  these  enormous  chests,  I  be- 


68  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

gan  to  take  leave  of  my  hospitable  hostesses.  They 
made  me  promise  to  come  again  some  day. 

I  kept  this  promise  seven  years  later,  when  I  was 
sent  to  the  little  town  as  an  adviser  in  a  lawsuit.  As 
I  entered  the  familiar  cottage  I  heard  the  same  ex- 
clamations; they  recognised  me!  Of  course  they  did! 
My  first  visit  had  been  a  great  event  in  their  lives, 
and  events,  when  they  are  few  and  far  between,  are 
long  remembered.  The  mother,  stouter  than  ever  and 
now  growing  grey,  was  on  the  floor  cutting  out  some 
blue  material;  the  daughter  was  sitting  on  the  sofa 
embroidering.  There  were  the  same  scraps  of  cloth, 
the  same  smell  of  moth  balls,  the  same  portrait  with 
the  broken  corner. 

But  there  were  changes,  nevertheless.  A  portrait  of 
Peter  Tchikamassoff  hung  beside  that  of  the  bishop, 
and  the  ladies  were  in  mourning.  He  had  died  one 
week  after  his  promotion  to  the  rank  of  general. 

We  recalled  old  times  and  the  general's  widow  be- 
gan to  weep. 

"We  have  had  a  great  sorrow,"  she  said.  "Peter — 
have  you  heard  it? — is  no  longer  with  us.  We  are  all 
alone  now  and  have  to  shift  for  ourselves.  Gregory  is 
still  alive,  but  we  can't  say  anything  good  of  him.  He 
couldn't  get  into  the  monastery  on  account  of — of 
drink,  and  he  drinks  more  than  ever  now,  from  grief. 
I  am  going  to  the  marshal  very  soon  to  lodge  a  com- 
plaint against  him.  Only  think,  he  has  opened  the 
chests  several  times  and — and  has  taken  out  Ma- 


THE  TROUSSEAU  69 

netchka's  trousseau  and  given  it  away  to  the  pilgrims ! 
He  has  taken  all  there  was  in  two  chests!  If  this  goes 
on  my  Manetchka  will  be  left  with  no  trousseau  at 
all." 

"What  are  you  saying,  mother?"  cried  Manetchka 
in  confusion.  "He  might  really  think  that — I  shall 
never,  never  be  married!" 

Manetchka  looked  upward  at  the  ceiling  with  hope 
and  inspiration  in  her  eyes,  and  it  was  clear  that  she 
did  not  believe  what  she  had  said. 

A  little  man  darted  into  the  hall  and  slipped  by 
like  a  mouse.  He  was  bald  and  wore  a  brown  coat 
and  goloshes  instead  of  boots.  "Probably  Gregory,"  I 
thought. 

I  looked  at  the  mother  and  daughter.  Both  had 
aged  greatly.  The  hair  of  the  mother  was  streaked 
with  silver,  and  the  daughter  had  faded  and  drooped, 
so  that  the  mother  now  looked  not  more  than  five 
years  older  than  her  child. 

"I  am  going  to  the  marshal  soon,"  said  the  old  lady, 
forgetting  that  she  had  already  spoken  of  this.  "I 
want  to  lodge  a  complaint  against  Gregory.  He  takes 
everything  that  we  sew  and  gives  it  away  for  the 
salvation  of  souls.  My  Manetchka  has  been  left  with- 
out a  trousseau!" 

Manetchka  blushed,  but  this  time  she  did  not  utter 
a  word. 

"  We  shall  have  to  make  it  all  over  again,  and  we  are 
not  very  rich;  we  are  all  alone  now,  she  and  I." 


TO  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"We  are  all  alone,"  Manetchka  repeated. 

Last  year  fate  again  took  me  to  the  little  house. 
Going  into  the  parlour,  I  saw  the  old  lady  Tchikamas- 
soff.  She  was  dressed  all  in  black,  and  was  sitting  on 
the  sofa  and  sewing.  By  her  side  sat  a  little  old  man 
in  a  brown  coat  with  goloshes  instead  of  boots.  At 
the  sight  of  me  he  jumped  up  and  ran  out  of  the  room. 

In  answer  to  my  greeting  the  little  old  lady  smiled 
and  said:  "Je  suis  charmee  de  vous  revoir,  monsieur." 

"What  are  you  sewing?"  I  asked  after  a  pause. 

"This  is  a  chemise,"  she  answered.  "When  it  is 
finished  I  shall  take  it  to  the  priest's  house  or  else 
Gregory  will  carry  it  off.  I  hide  everything  now  at  the 
priest's,"  she  said  in  a  whisper.  And,  glancing  at  a 
picture  of  her  daughter  that  stood  on  the  table  before 
her,  she  sighed  and  said: 

"You  see,  we  are  all  alone  now." 

But  where  was  the  daughter?  Where  was  Ma- 
netchka? I  did  not  ask.  I  did  not  want  to  ask  the 
old  lady  dressed  in  deep  mourning,  and  during  all  my 
visit  in  the  little  house  and  while  I  was  afterward 
taking  my  leave,  no  Manetchka  came  in  to  see  me, 
neither  did  I  hear  her  voice  nor  her  light,  timid  step. 
I  understood  now,  and  my  heart  grew  sad. 


THE  DECORATION 

EO  PUSTIAKOFF,  a  teacher  in  a  military  school, 
lived  next  door  to  his  friend  Lieutenant  Leden- 
tsoff.     Toward  him  he  bent  his  steps  one  New  Year's 
morning. 

"The  thing  is  this,  Grisha,"  he  said  after  the  cus- 
tomary New  Year's  greetings  had  passed  between 
them,  "  I  wouldn't  trouble  you  unless  it  were  on  very 
important  business.  Won't  you  please  lend  me  your 
Order  of  St.  Stanislas  for  to-day?  You  see,  I  am  dining 
at  Spitchkin,  the  merchant's;  you  know  what  that  old 
wretch  Spitchkin  is;  he  simply  worships  a  decoration, 
and  any  one  who  doesn't  sport  something  round  his 
neck  or  in  his  buttonhole  is  pretty  nearly  a  scoundrel 
in  his  opinion,  Besides,  he  has  two  daughters,  Anas- 
tasia,  you  know,  and  Zina.  I  ask  you  as  a  friend — 
you  understand,  don't  you,  old  man?  Let  me  have  it, 
I  implore  you!" 

Pustiakoff  uttered  all  this  stammering  and  blush- 
ing and  glancing  apprehensively  at  the  door.  The 
lieutenant  scolded  a  bit  and  then  gave  his  consent. 

At  two  o'clock  Pustiakoff  drove  to  the  Spitchkin's 
in  a  cab,  and,  unbuttoning  his  fur  coat  as  he  drove, 
looked  down  at  his  chest.     There  shone  the  gold  and 
gleamed  the  enamel  of  the  borrowed  decoration. 
71 


72  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"Somehow,  one  seems  to  feel  more  self-respecting," 
thought  the  teacher,  clearing  his  throat.  "Here's  a 
trifle  not  worth  more  than  five  roubles,  and  yet  what  a 
furor  it  will  create!" 

On  reaching  Spitchkin's  house  he  threw  open  his 
coat  and  slowly  paid  off  the  cabman.  The  man,  so 
it  seemed  to  him,  was  petrified  at  the  sight  of  his 
epaulets,  his  buttons,  and  his  decoration.  Pustia- 
koff  coughed  with  self-satisfaction  and  entered  the 
house.  As  he  took  off  his  coat  in  the  hall  he  looked 
into  the  dining-room.  There,  at  the  long  table,  sat 
fifteen  people  at  dinner.  He  heard  talking  and  the 
clattering  of  dishes. 

"  Who  rang  the  bell?  "  he  heard  the  host  ask.  "  Why, 
it's  you,  Pustiakoff!  Come  in!  You're  a  little  bit 
late,  but  no  matter;  we  have  only  just  sat  down." 

Pustiakoff  puffed  out  his  chest,  threw  up  his  head, 
and,  rubbing  his  hands  together,  entered  the  room. 
But  there  something  perfectly  terrible  met  his  sight. 
At  the  table  next  to  Zina  sat  his  colleague,  the  French 
teacher  Tremblant!  To  let  the  Frenchman  see  the 
decoration  would  be  to  expose  himself  to  a  host  of  the 
most  disagreeable  questions,  to  disgrace  himself  for 
ever,  to  ruin  his  reputation.  Pustiakoff's  first  impulse 
was  to  tear  it  off  or  else  to  rush  from  the  room,  but  it 
was  tightly  sewn  on,  and  retreat  was  now  out  of  the 
question.  Hastily  covering  the  decoration  with  his 
right  hand,  he  bowed  awkwardly  to  the  company  and, 
without  shaking  hands  with  any  one,  dropped  heavily 


THE  DECORATION  73 

into  an  empty  chair.  This  happened  to  be  exactly 
opposite  his  colleague,  the  Frenchman. 

"He  must  have  been  drinking,"  thought  Spitchkin, 
seeing  him  overwhelmed  with  confusion. 

A  plate  of  soup  was  put  before  Pustiakoff.  He  took 
up  his  spoon  with  his  left  hand,  but,  remembering  that 
one  can't  eat  with  one's  left  hand  in  polite  society, 
he  explained  that  he  had  already  had  dinner  and  was 
not  at  all  hungry. 

"Merci — I — I  have  already  eaten,"  he  stammered. 
"I  went  to  call  on  my  uncle  Elegeff  the  priest,  and  he 
begged  me — to — to  have  dinner." 

The  soul  of  Pustiakoff  was  filled  with  agony  and 
vexation,  his  soup  exhaled  the  most  delicious  aroma, 
and  an  extraordinarily  appetising  steam  rose  from  the 
boiled  sturgeon.  The  teacher  tried  to  set  his  right 
hand  free  by  covering  the  decoration  with  his  left,  but 
this  was  too  inconvenient. 

"They  would  be  sure  to  catch  sight  of  it,"  he  thought, 
"and  my  arm  would  be  stretched  right  across  my 
chest  as  if  I  were  about  to  sing  a  song.  Lord !  If  only 
this  meal  might  soon  be  over!  I  shall  go  and  have 
dinner  at  the  tavern." 

At  the  end  of  the  third  course  he  glanced  timidly 
out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye  at  the  Frenchman.  For 
some  reason  Tremblant,  too,  was  overcome  with  em- 
barrassment; he  kept  looking  at  him  and  was  not 
eating  anything,  either.  As  their  glances  met  they 
became  still  more  confused  and  dropped  their  eyes  to 
their  empty  plates. 


74  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"He  must  have  seen  it,  the  beast!"  thought  Pustia- 
koff.  "I  can  see  by  his  ugly  face  that  he  has!  The 
wretch  is  a  sneak  and  will  report  it  to  the  director  to- 
morrow." 

The  hosts  and  their  guests  finished  a  fourth  course 
I  and  then,  as  fate  would  have  it,  a  fifth. 

A  tall  man  with  wide,  hairy  nostrils,  a  hooked  nose, 
and  eyes  that  were  by  nature  half  closed  rose  from  his 
seat.  He  smoothed  his  hair  and  began: 

"I — er — I — er — propose  that  we  drink  to  the  health 
of  the  ladies  here  present!" 

The  diners  rose  noisily  and  took  up  their  glasses.  A 
mighty  "hurrah!"  filled  the  house.  The  ladies  smiled 
and  held  out  their  glasses.  Pustiakoff  got  up  and  took 
his  in  his  left  hand. 

"Pustiakoff,  may  I  trouble  you  to  pass  this  to  the 
lady  next  you?"  said  some  man,  handing  him  a  glass. 
"Make  her  drink  it!" 

This  time,  to  his  unspeakable  horror,  Pustiakoff 
found  himself  obliged  to  bring  his  right  hand  into 
action.  The  decoration,  with  its  crumpled  red  ribbon, 
glittered  as  it  saw  the  light  at  last.  The  teacher 
turned  pale,  dropped  his  head,  and  threw  a  terrified 
glance  in  the  direction  of  the  Frenchman.  The  latter 
was  looking  at  him  with  wondering,  curious  eyes.  A 
sly  smile  curved  his  lips  and  the  embarrassment  slowly 
faded  from  his  face. 

"Monsieur  Tremblant,"  said  the  host,  "pass  the 
bottle,  if  you  please!" 


THE  DECORATION  75 

Tremblant  stretched  out  his  hand  irresolutely  toward 
the  bottle,  and — oh,  rapture!  Pustiakoff  saw  a  dec- 
oration on  his  breast!  And  it  was  not  just  a  plain  St. 
Stanislas,  it  was  actually  the  Order  of  St.  Anne!  So 
the  Frenchman,  too,  had  been  duping  them!  Pustia- 
koff collapsed  in  his  chair  and  laughed  with  delight. 
There  was  no  need  now  to  conceal  his  decoration! 
Both  were  guilty  of  the  same  sin;  neither  could  give 
the  other  away. 

"Ah-hem!"  roared  Spitchkin  as  his  eyes  caught  the 
Order  of  St.  Stanislas  on  the  teacher's  breast. 

"Yes,"  said  Pustiakoff,  "it's  a  strange  thing,  Trem- 
blant, how  few  presentations  were  made  these  holi- 
days. You  and  I  are  the  only  ones  of  all  that  crowd 
that  have  been  decorated.  A  re-mark-able  thing!" 

Tremblant  nodded  gaily  and  proudly  exhibited  the 
left  lapel  of  his  coat  on  which  flaunted  the  Order  of  St. 
Anne. 

After  dinner  Pustiakoff  made  the  round  of  all  the 
rooms  and  showed  his  decoration  to  the  young  ladies. 
His  heart  was  easy  and  light  even  if  hunger  did  pinch 
him  a  bit  at  the  waist-line. 

"  If  I  had  only  known,"  he  thought,  looking  enviously 
at  Tremblant  chatting  with  Spitchkin  on  the  subject  of 
decorations,  "I  would  have  gone  higher  and  swiped  a 
Vladimir.  Oh,  why  didn't  I  have  more  sense!" 

This  was  the  only  thought  that  tormented  him. 
Otherwise  he  was  perfectly  happy. 


THE  MAN  IN  A  CASE 

ON  the  outskirts  of  the  village  of  Mironitski,  in 
a  shed  belonging  to  the  bailiff  Prokofi,  some  be- 
lated huntsmen  were  encamped  for  the  night.  There 
were  two  of  them:  the  veterinary  surgeon  Ivan  Ivan- 
itch  and  the  school-teacher  Burkin.  Ivan  Ivanitch 
had  a  rather  strange,  hyphenated  surname,  Tchimsha- 
Himalaiski,  which  did  not  suit  him  at  all,  and  so  he  was 
known  all  over  the  province  simply  by  his  two  Chris- 
tian names.  He  lived  on  a  stud-farm  near  the  town 
and  had  now  come  out  hunting  to  get  a  breath  of  fresh 
air.  Burkin,  the  school-teacher,  had  long  been  at  home 
in  this  neighbourhood,  for  he  came  every  year  as  the 
guest  of  Count  P —  — . 

They  were  not  asleep.  Ivan  Ivanitch,  a  tall,  spare 
old  man  with  a  long  moustache,  sat  at  the  door  of  the 
shed,  with  the  moon  shining  on  him,  smoking  his  pipe. 
Burkin  lay  inside  on  the  hay  and  was  invisible  in  the 
shadows. 

They  were  telling  stories.  Among  other  things,  they 
spoke  of  Mavra,  the  bailiff's  wife,  a  healthy,  intelli- 
gent woman  who  had  never  in  her  life  been  outside  of 
her  native  village  and  who  had  never  seen  the  town 
nor  the  railway;  they  remembered  that  she  had  sat 
76 


THE  MAN  IN  A  CASE  77 

beside  the  stove  now  for  the  last  ten  years,  never 
going  out  into  the  street  except  after  nightfall. 

"There  is  nothing  so  very  surprising  in  that,"  said 
Burkin.  "There  are  not  a  few  people  in  this  world 
who,  like  hermit-crabs  and  snails,  are  always  trying  to 
retire  into  their  shells.  Perhaps  this  is  a  manifesta- 
tion of  atavism,  a  harking  back  to  the  time  when  man's 
forebears  were  not  yet  gregarious  animals  but  lived 
alone  in  their  dens,  or  perhaps  it  is  simply  one  of  the 
many  phases  of  human  character — who  can  say?  I 
am  not  an  anthropologist  and  it  is  not  my  business  to 
meddle  with  such  questions;  I  only  mean  to  say  that 
people  like  Mavra  are  not  an  uncommon  phenomenon. 
Here!  We  don't  have  to  go  far  to  seek  an  illustration. 
Two  months  ago  a  certain  Byelinkoff  died  in  our  town, 
a  colleague  of  mine,  a  teacher  of  Greek.  You  must 
have  heard  of  him.  He  was  remarkable  for  one  thing: 
no  matter  how  fine  the  weather  was,  he  always  went 
out  in  goloshes,  carrying  an  umbrella  and  wearing  a 
warm,  wadded  overcoat.  And  his  umbrella  he  always 
kept  in  a  case  and  his  watch  was  in  a  case  of  grey 
chamois,  and  when  he  took  out  his  penknife  to  sharpen 
a  pencil  that,  too,  was  in  a  little  case.  Even  his  face 
seemed  to  be  in  a  case,  for  he  always  kept  it  con- 
cealed behind  the  turned-up  collar  of  his  coat.  He  wore 
dark  spectacles  and  a  warm  waistcoat,  and  he  kept 
cotton-wool  in  his  ears  and  he  had  the  hood  raised 
whenever  he  got  into  a  cab.  In  a  word,  one  saw  in 
this  man  a  perpetual  and  irresistible  longing  to  wrap 


78  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

some  covering  around  himself — one  might  call  it  a 
case — which  would  isolate  him  from  external  impres- 
sions. Reality  chafed  and  alarmed  him  and  kept  him 
in  a  state  of  perpetual  apprehension,  and  it  was,  per- 
haps, to  justify  his  timidity  and  his  aversion  to  the 
present  that  he  always  exalted  the  past  and  things 
which  had  never  existed.  The  ancient  languages  which 
he  taught  were  at  bottom  the  goloshes  and  umbrella 
behind  which  he  hid  himself  from  the  realities  of  ex- 
istence. 

"  'Oh,  how  musical,  how  beautiful  is  the  Greek 
tongue!'  he  would  cry  with  a  beaming  look,  and,  as  if 
in  proof  of  what  he  had  said,  he  would  half  shut  his 
eyes,  hold  up  one  finger,  and  pronounce  the  word 
'anthropos'! 

"And  his  opinions,  too,  Byelinkoff  tried  to  confine 
in  a  case.  Only  bulletins  and  newspaper  articles  in 
which  something  was  prohibited  were  clear  to  him. 
If  he  saw  a  bulletin  forbidding  the  scholars  to  go  out 
on  the  street  after  nine  o'clock,  or  if  he  read  an  article 
enjoining  him  from  carnal  love,  that  was  fixed  and  clear 
to  him — and  basta!  For  to  him  there  was  always  an 
element  of  doubt,  something  unspoken  and  confused, 
concealed  in  licence  and  liberty  of  action.  When  it 
was  permitted  to  start  a  dramatic  or  reading  club  in 
the  town  he  would  shake  his  head  and  say  softly: 

"  'That  is  all  very  well  and  very  fine,  but  I  shouldn't 
wonder  if  something  unpleasant  would  come  of  it.' 

"Every  transgression  and  deviation  from  the  right 


THE  MAN  IN  A  CASE  79 

plunged  him  into  dejection,  although  one  wondered 
what  business  it  was  of  his.  If  one  of  his  colleagues 
came  late  to  prayers,  or  if  he  heard  rumours  of  some 
prank  of  the  schoolboys,  or  if  one  of  the  lady  super- 
intendents was  seen  late  at  night  with  an  officer,  he 
would  grow  tremendously  excited  and  always  insist 
that  something  unpleasant  would  come  of  it.  At  the 
teachers'  meetings  he  used  to  drive  us  absolutely  mad 
by  his  prudence  and  his  scruples  and  his  absolutely 
case-like  reflections.  'Oh,'  he  would  cry,  'the  boys 
and  girls  in  the  school  behave  so  very  badly  and  make 
such  a  noise  in  the  classrooms!  Oh,  what  if  this  should 
reach  the  governor's  ears,  and  what  if  something  un- 
pleasant should  come  of  it?  If  only  Petroff  coujd  be 
expelled  from  the  second  class  and  Yegorieff  from  the 
fourth,  how  good  it  would  be!'  And  what  was  the 
result?  We  would  grow  so  oppressed  with  his  sigh- 
ing and  his  moaning  and  his  dark  spectacles  on  his 
white  face  that  we  would  give  in — give  Petroff  and 
Yegorieff  bad-conduct  marks,  put  them  under  arrest, 
and  finally  expel  them. 

"He  had  a  strange  habit — he  used  to  make  the  tour 
of  our  rooms.  He  would  come  into  a  master's  room 
and  just  sit  and  say  nothing,  as  if  he  were  looking  for 
something.  He  would  sit  like  that  for  an  hour  or  so 
and  then  would  go  out.  This  he  called  'keeping  on 
good  terms  with  his  comrades,'  but  it  was  plainly  a 
heavy  burden  for  him  to  come  and  sit  with  us,  and  he 
only  did  it  because  he  considered  it  his  duty  as  our 


80  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

comrade.  All  of  us  teachers  were  afraid  of  him. 
Even  the  director  feared  him.  Our  teachers  are  all  a 
thoughtful  and  thoroughly  steady  lot,  brought  up  on 
Turgenieff  and  Shedrin,  and  yet  this  man,  with  his 
goloshes  and  his  umbrella,  held  the  whole  school  in 
the  hollow  of  his  hand  for  fifteen  years.  The  whole 
school,  did  I  say?  The  whole  town!  The  ladies  did 
not  dare  to  get  up  little  plays  on  Saturday  evenings 
for  fear  he  should  hear  of  it,  and  the  clergy  were 
ashamed  to  eat  meat  and  play  cards  in  his  presence. 
Under  the  influence  of  men  like  Byelinkoff  the  people 
of  our  town  in  the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years  have  be- 
gun to  fear  everything.  They  are  afraid  of  sending 
letters,  of  making  acquaintances,  of  speaking  aloud,  of 
reading  books,  of  helping  or  teaching  the  poor 

Ivan  Ivanitch  coughed  as  a  sign  that  he  wanted  to 
make  a  remark,  but  he  first  finished  his  pipe,  then 
gazed  at  the  moon,  and  then  at  last,  pausing  at  in- 
tervals, said: 

"Yes,  they  are  thoughtful  and  steady;  they  read 
Shedrin  and  Turgenieff  and  others,  and  therefore  they 
have  submitted  patiently — that  is  just  it." 

"Byelinkoff  lived  in  the  same  house  that  I  did," 
Burkin  went  on,  "  on  the  same  floor.  His  door  was  op- 
posite mine.  We  often  met,  and  I  was  familiar  with  his 
domestic  life.  It  was  the  same  old  story  when  he  was 
at  home.  He  wore  a  dressing-gown  and  a  nightcap  and 
had  shutters  to  his  windows  and  bolts  to  his  doors — a 
perfect  array  of  restraints  and  restrictions  and  of  '  oh- 


THE  MAN  IN  A  CASE  81 

something-unpleasant-might-come-of-its.'  Lenten  fare 
was  bad  for  the  health,  but  to  eat  flesh  was  impos- 
sible because  somebody  might  say  that  Byelinkoff  did 
not  keep  the  fasts;  therefore  he  ate  perch  fried  in 
butter,  which  was  not  Lenten  fare,  but  neither  could 
it  be  called  meat.  He  would  not  keep  a  woman  ser- 
vant for  fear  that  people  might  think  ill  of  him,  so  he 
employed  as  a  cook  an  old  man  named  Afanasi,  a 
besotted  semi-idiot  of  sixty  wio  had  once  been  an 
officer's  servant  and  could  cook  after  a  fashion.  This 
Afanasi  would  stand  at  the  door  with  folded  arms,  sigh 
deeply,  and  always  mutter  one  and  the  same  thing: 
"  'There's  a  whole  lot  of  them  out  to-day!' 
"  Byelinkoff 's  bedroom  was  like  a  little  box  and 
curtains  hung  round  his  bed.  When  he  went  to  sleep 
he  would  pull  the  blankets  over  his  head.  The  room 
would  be  stuffy  and  hot,  the  wind  rattle  the  closed 
doors  and  rumble  in  the  stove,  and  sighs,  ominous 
sighs,  would  be  heard  from  the  kitchen;  and  he  would 
shake  under  his  bedclothes.  He  was  afraid  that  some- 
thing unpleasant  might  come  of  it — that  Afanasi 
might  murder  him,  that  burglars  might  break  in.  All 
night  he  would  be  a  prey  to  alarming  dreams,  and  in 
the  morning,  as  we  walked  to  the  school  together,  he 
would  be  melancholy  and  pale,  and  one  could  see  that 
the  crowded  school  toward  which  he  was  going  dis- 
mayed him  and  was  repugnant  to  his  whole  being,  and 
that  it  was  burdensome  for  a  man  of  his  solitary  dis- 
position to  be  walking  beside  me. 


82  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"  'There  is  so  much  noise  in  the  classrooms,'  he 
would  say  as  if  seeking  an  explanation  of  his  depres- 
sion. 

"And  think  of  it,  this  teacher  of  Greek,  this  man  in 
a  case,  once  very  nearly  got  married!" 

Ivan  Ivanitch  looked  quickly  round  into  the  shed 
and  said: 

"You're  joking!" 

"Yes,  he  nearly  got  married,  strange  as  it  may  ap- 
pear. A  new  teacher  of  history  and  geography  was 
appointed  to  our  school,  a  certain  Little  Russian  named 
Kovalenko.  He  did  not  come  alone  but  brought  his 
sister  Varenka  with  him.  He  was  young  and  tall 
and  dark,  with  huge  hands  and  a  face  from  which  it 
could  be  guessed  that  he  possessed  a  bass  voice.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  when  he  spoke  his  voice  did  sound  as  if 
it  were  coming  out  of  a  barrel — boo — boo — boo — .  As 
for  her,  she  was  no  longer  young,  thirty  perhaps,  but 
she  was  tall,  too,  and  graceful,  dark-eyed  and  red- 
cheeked — a  sugar-plum  of  a  girl,  and  so  boisterous  and 
jolly!  She  was  always  singing  Little  Russian  songs  and 
ha-ha-ing.  At  the  slightest  provocation  she  would 
break  into  loud  peals  of  laughter — ha!  ha!  ha!  I  re- 
member the  first  time  we  met  the  Kovalenkos;  it  was  at 
a  birthday  party  at  the  director's.  Among  the  stern, 
tiresome  teachers  who  go  to  birthday  parties  out  of 
a  sense  of  duty,  we  suddenly  beheld  a  new  Aphrodite 
risen  from  the  waves,  strolling  about  with  her  arms 
akimbo,  laughing,  singing,  and  dancing.  She  sang 


THE  MAN  IN  A  CASE  83 

'The  Wind  Blows'  with  feeling,  and  then  another  song, 
and  then  another,  and  fascinated  us  all,  even  Byelin- 
koff.  He  sat  down  beside  her  and  said  with  a  sweet 
smile : 

'  'The  Little  Russian  tongue  with  its  tenderness  and 
pleasant  sonorousness  reminds  me  of  ancient  Greek.' 

"This  flattered  her,  and  she  began  earnestly  and 
with  feeling  to  tell  him  that  she  had  a  farm  in  the 
province  of  Gadiatch,  that  her  mamma  lived  there 
and  that  there  were  such  pears  and  such  melons  there 
and  such  inns!  Little  Russians  call  gourds  'inns,'  and 
make  a  soup  out  of  the  little  red  ones  and  the  lit- 
tle blue  ones  that  is  'so  good,  so  good  it  is  simply — 
awful ! ' 

"We  listened  and  listened,  and  the  same  thought 
suddenly  crossed  the  minds  of  all  of  us. 

'  'How  nice  it  would  be  to  make  a  match  between 
them!'  said  the  director's  wife  to  me  quietly. 

"For  some  reason  we  all  remembered  that  our  Bye- 
linkoff  was  unmarried,  and  it  now  seemed  strange  to 
us  that  until  this  moment  we  had  not  noticed,  had  some- 
how quite  overlooked  this  important  detail  in  his  life. 
By  the  way,  how  does  he  regard  women?  we  asked  our- 
selves. How  does  he  solve  this  daily  problem?  This 
had  not  interested  us  before  at  all;  perhaps  we  had 
not  even  entertained  the  idea  that  a  man  who  wore 
goloshes  in  all  weathers  and  slept  behind  bed  curtains 
could  possibly  fall  in  love. 

"  'He  is  already  long  past  forty,  but  she  is  thirty 


84  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

herself,'  the  director's  wife  expressed  her  opinion.  'I 
think  she  would  marry  him.' 

"How  many  wrong  and  foolish  deeds  are  committed 
in  our  country  towns  because  we  are  bored!  What 
need  was  there  to  have  tried  to  marry  off  Byelinkoff, 
whom  one  could  not  even  conceive  of  as  being  married? 
The  director's  wife  and  the  inspector's  wife  and  all  the 
ladies  of  our  school  brightened  and  bloomed  as  if  they 
had  suddenly  discovered  the  object  of  their  existence. 
The  director's  wife  takes  a  box  at  the  theatre,  and,  be- 
hold! in  it  sits  Varenka  waving  afan,radiant  and  happy, 
and  beside  her  is  Byelinkoff,  small  and  depressed,  as 
if  they  had  pulled  him  out  of  his  room  with  a  pair  of 
pincers.  I  give  an  evening  party,  and  the  ladies  in- 
sist that  I  shall  invite  both  Byelinkoff  and  Varenka. 
In  a  word,  the  mills  were  grinding.  It  appeared  that 
Varenka  was  not  averse  to  marriage.  It  was  not 
particularly  cheerful  for  her  living  at  her  brother's,  for 
they  scolded  and  squabbled  the  day  long.  Here's  a 
picture  for  you :  Kovalenko  is  stalking  down  the  street, 
a  tall,  lusty  fellow  in  an  embroidered  shirt  with  his 
forelock  hanging  down  over  his  forehead  from  under 
the  brim  of  his  cap.  In  one  hand  he  carries  a  bundle 
of  books,  in  the  other  a  thick,  knotted  stick.  Behind 
him  walks  his  sister,  also  carrying  books. 

"'But  you  haven't  read  it,  Mihailik!'  she  argues 
loudly.  'I  tell  you,  I  swear  to  you,  you  haven't  read 
it  at  all!' 

"  'But  I  tell  you  I  have  read  it!'  shouts  Kovalenko, 
rattling  his  stick  on  the  sidewalk. 


THE  MAN  IN  A  CASE  85 

"  'Oh,  Lord  have  mercy,  Mintchik!  What  are  you 
getting  so  angry  about;  does  it  matter?' 

'  'But  I  tell  you  that  I  have  read  it!'  shouts  Kova- 
lenko  still  louder. 

"And  at  home,  as  soon  as  an  outsider  came  in  they 
would  open  fire  at  each  other.  A  life  like  that  was  prob- 
ably growing  wearisome  for  her;  she  wanted  a  nook  of 
her  own;  and  then  her  age  should  be  taken  into  ac- 
count; at  her  years  there's  little  time  for  picking  and 
choosing — a  woman  takes  what  she  can  get,  even  if  the 
man  be  a  teacher  of  Greek.  And,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  majority  of  our  young  ladies  will  marry  whom 
they  can,  only  to  get  married.  Well,  be  it  as  it  may, 
Varenka  began  to  show  our  Byelinkoff  marked  favour. 

"And  what  about  Byelinkoff?  He  called  on  the 
Kovalenkos  as  he  did  on  the  rest  of  us.  He  would  go 
to  their  rooms  and  sit  and  say  nothing.  He  would 
say  nothing,  but  Varenka  would  sing  'The  Wind 
Blows'  for  him,  or  gaze  at  him  pensively  out  of  her 
dark  eyes,  or  suddenly  break  into  peals  of  merry 
laughter — ha!  ha!  ha! 

"In  affairs  of  the  heart,  and  especially  in  marriage, 
a  large  part  is  played  by  suggestion.  Every  one — both 
the  ladies  and  Byelinkoff 's  colleagues — all  began  to  as- 
sure him  that  he  ought  to  get  married,  that  there  was 
nothing  for  him  to  do  but  to  marry.  We  all  con- 
gratulated him  and  said  all  sorts  of  silly  things  with 
grave  faces — that  marriage  was  a  serious  step,  and  so 
forth.  Besides  that,  Varenka  was  pretty  and  attrac- 


86  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

live;  she  was  the  daughter  of  a  state  councilor  and 
owned  a  farm  of  her  own;  and,  above  all,  she  was  the 
first  woman  who  had  treated  him  kindly  and  affec- 
tionately. His  head  was  turned  and  he  fancied  that 
he  really  must  marry." 

"Now  would  have  been  the  time  to  get  rid  of  his 
goloshes  and  his  umbrella,"  said  Ivan  Ivanitch. 

"Will  you  believe  it?  That  proved  to  be  impossible. 
He  put  a  photograph  of  Varenka  on  his  table,  and  kept 
coming  to  me  and  talking  to  me  about  Varenka  and 
family  life,  and  about  what  a  serious  step  marriage 
was;  he  was  much  at  the  Kovalenkos,  but  he  did  not 
change  his  way  of  living  one  atom.  On  the  contrary, 
his  resolve  to  get  married  affected  him  painfully;  he 
grew  thin  and  pale  and  seemed  to  shrink  still  farther 
into  his  case. 

"  'I  like  Miss  Varenka,'  he  said  to  me  once  with  a 
wry  smile,  'and  I  know  every  man  ought  to  marry,  but 
— all  this  has  happened  so  suddenly;  I  must  think  it 
over  a  bit.' 

"  '  What  is  there  to  think  over? '  I  answered.  '  Marry 
her!  That's  all  there  is  to  it.' 

"  'No,  marriage  is  a  serious  step;  one  must  first 
weigh  the  consequences  and  duties  and  responsibili- 
ties— so  that  nothing  unpleasant  shall  come  of  it.  All 
this  worries  me  so  that  I  can't  sleep  any  more  at  night. 
And,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  I  am  alarmed:  she  and  her 
brother  have  such  a  queer  way  of  thinking;  they 
reason  somehow  so  strangely,  and  she  has  a  very  bold 


THE  MAN  IN  A  CASE  87 

character.  One  might  marry  her  and,  before  one  knew 
it,  get  mixed  up  in  some  scandal.' 

"And  so  he  did  not  propose,  but  still  kept  putting 
it  off,  to  the  deep  chagrin  of  the  director's  wife  and  of 
all  of  our  ladies;  he  still  kept  weighing  those  duties 
and  responsibilities,  though  he  went  walking  every  day 
with  Varenka,  thinking,  no  doubt,  that  this  was  due  to 
a  man  placed  as  he  was.  He  still  kept  coming  to  me 
to  discuss  family  life. 

"But  in  all  probability  he  would  have  proposed  at 
last,  and  one  of  those  bad  and  foolish  matches  would 
have  been  consummated,  as  so  many  thousands  are, 
simply  because  people  have  nothing  better  to  do  with 
themselves,  had  we  not  been  suddenly  overwhelmed 
by  a  colossal  scandal. 

"I  must  tell  you  that  Varenka's  brother  could  not 
abide  Byelinkoff. 

"  'I  can't  understand,'  he  would  say  to  us  with  a 
shrug  of  his  shoulders,  'I  can't  imagine  how  you  can 
stomach  that  sneak  with  his  horrid  face.  Oh,  friends, 
how  can  you  live  here?  Your  whole  atmosphere  here 
is  stifling  and  nauseating.  Are  you  instructors  and 
teachers?  No,  you  are  sycophants,  and  this  isn't  a  tem- 
ple of  learning;  it's  a  detective  office,  stinking  as  sour  as 
a  police  court.  No,  brothers,  I'm  going  to  stay  here 
a  little  while  longer,  and  then  I'm  going  back  to  my 
farm  to  catch  crawfish  and  teach  young  Little  Russians. 
I  am  going,  and  you  can  stay  here  with  your  Judas.' 

"Or  else  he  would  laugh  and  laugh  till  the  tears 


88  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

rolled  down  his  cheeks,  now  in  a  deep  voice,  now  in  a 
high  squeaky  one,  and  demand  of  me,  spreading  out 
his  hands: 

"  'What  does  he  sit  in  my  room  for?  What  is  he 
after?  He  just  sits  and  stares.' 

"He  even  called  Byelinkoff  'the  spider,'  and,  of 
course,  we  avoided  mentioning  to  him  that  his  sister 
was  thinking  of  marrying  this  'spider.'  When  the 
director's  wife  once  hinted  to  him  that  it  would  be  a 
good  idea  to  settle  his  sister  with  such  a  steady,  uni- 
versally respected  man  as  Byelinkoff  he  frowned  and 
growled: 

"  'That's  none  of  my  business.  Let  her  marry  a 
reptile  if  she  likes.  I  can't  endure  interfering  in  other 
people's  affairs.' 

"And  now  listen  to  what  followed.  Some  wag  made 
a  caricature  of  Byelinkoff  in  goloshes  and  cotton 
trousers,  holding  up  an  umbrella,  with  Varenka  on 
his  arm.  Underneath  was  written:  'The  Amorous  An- 
thropos.'  His  expression  was  caught  to  perfection. 
The  artist  must  have  worked  more  nights  than  one, 
for  every  teacher  in  our  school,  every  teacher  in  the 
seminary,  and  every  official  received  a  copy.  Byelin- 
koff got  one,  too.  The  caricature  made  the  most  pain- 
ful impression  on  him. 

"We  were  coming  out  of  our  house  together.  It 
was  on  a  Sunday,  the  first  of  May,  and  all  of  us, 
teachers  and  pupils,  had  agreed  to  meet  at  the  school 
and  from  there  walk  out  beyond  the  town  into  the 


THE  MAN  IN  A  CASE  89 

woods.  So  we  came  out  together,  and  his  face  was 
absolutely  green;  he  looked  like  a  thunder-cloud. 

"  'What  bad,  what  unkind  people  there  are!'  he 
burst  out,  and  his  lips  quivered. 

"I  really  felt  sorry  for  him.  As  we  walked  along, 
we  suddenly  saw  Kovalenko  riding  toward  us  on  a 
bicycle,  followed  by  Varenka,  also  on  a  bicycle.  She 
was  scarlet  and  dusty,  but  merry  and  gay  neverthe- 
less. 

'  'We  are  going  on  ahead!'  she  cried.  'This  weather 
is  so  glorious,  so  glorious,  it's  simply  awful!' 

"And  they  disappeared  from  view. 

"Our  Byelinkoff's  face  turned  from  green  to  white, 
and  he  seemed  paralysed.  He  stopped  and  looked  at 
me. 

"  'Allow  me,  what  do  I  see?'  he  asked.  'Or  does  my 
eyesight  deceive  me?  Is  it  proper  for  school-teachers 
and  women  to  ride  bicycles?' 

''What  is  there  improper  about  it?'  said  I.  'Let 
them  ride  to  their  hearts'  content.' 

'  'But  how  is  it  possible?'  he  shrieked,  stupefied  by 
my  calmness.  'What  are  you  saying?' 

"And  he  was  so  shocked  that  he  did  not  want  to  go 
on  any  farther,  but  turned  and  went  home. 

"Next  day  he  rubbed  his  hands  nervously  all  the 
time  and  trembled,  and  we  could  see  from  his  face  that 
he  was  not  well.  He  left  his  work — the  first  time  in 
his  life  that  this  had  happened  to  him — and  did  not 
come  to  dinner.  Toward  evening  he  dressed  himself 


90  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

warmly,  although  the  weather  was  now  quite  summer- 
like,  and  crawled  over  to  the  Kovalenkos.  Varenka 
was  not  at  home;  he  found  her  brother  alone. 

"  'Sit  down,'  said  Kovalenko  coldly  and  frowned. 
He  looked  sleepy;  he  had  just  had  a  nap  after  his 
dinner  and  was  in  a  very  bad  humour. 

"Byelinkoff  sat  for  ten  minutes  in  silence  and  then 
said: 

"  'I  have  come  to  you  to  relieve  my  mind.  I  am 
very,  very  much  grieved.  Some  lampooner  has  made 
a  picture  of  myself  and  a  person  who  is  near  to  us  both 
in  a  ridiculous  position.  I  consider  it  my  duty  to  as- 
sure you  that  I  have  had  nothing  to  do  with  this;  I 
have  never  given  any  occasion  for  such  a  jest;  I  have 
always  behaved  with  perfect  propriety  all  the  time.' 

"Kovalenko  sat  moodily  without  saying  a  word. 
Byelinkoff  waited  a  few  minutes  and  then  went  on  in 
a  sad,  low  voice: 

"  'And  I  have  something  else  to  say  to  you.  I  have 
been  a  teacher  for  many  years,  and  your  career  is  just 
beginning:  I  consider  it  my  duty  as  an  older  man  to 
give  you  a  word  of  warning.  You  ride  the  bicycle — 
now,  this  amusement  is  quite  improper  for  a  teacher  of 
the  young.' 

"  'Why?'  asked  Kovalenko  in  a  deep  voice. 

"  'Need  I  really  explain  that  to  you,  Kovalenko? 
Isn't  it  obvious?  If  the  master  goes  about  on  a 
bicycle,  what  is  there  left  for  the  pupils  to  go  about 
on?  Only  their  heads!  And  if  permission  to  do  it 


THE  MAN  IN  A  CASE  91 

has  not  been  given  in  a  bulletin,  it  must  not  be  done. 
I  was  horrified  yesterday.  My  head  swam  when  I 
saw  your  sister — a  woman  or  a  girl  on  a  bicycle — how 
terrible!' 

"  'What  do  you  want,  anyhow?' 

"  'I  only  want  one  thing:  I  want  to  caution  you. 
You  are  a  young  man,  the  future  lies  before  you,  you 
must  be  very,  very  careful,  or  you  will  make  a  mistake. 
Oh,  what  a  mistake  you  will  make!  You  go  about 
wearing  embroidered  shirts,  you  are  always  on  the 
street  with  some  book  or  other,  and  now  you  ride  a 
bicycle!  The  director  will  hear  of  it;  it  will  reach  the 
ears  of  the  trustees  that  you  and  your  sister  ride  the 
bicycle — what  is  the  use?' 

'  'It  is  nobody's  business  whether  my  sister  and  I 
ride  the  bicycle  or  not,'  said  Kovalenko  flushing  deeply. 
'And  whoever  interferes  in  my  domestic  and  family 
affairs  I  will  kick  to  the  devil.' 

"Byelinkoff  paled  and  rose. 

"  'If  you  talk  to  me  in  that  way  I  cannot  con- 
tinue,' he  said.  '  I  must  ask  you  never  to  refer  to  the 
heads  of  the  school  in  that  tone  in  my  presence.  You 
should  have  more  respect  for  the  authorities.' 

'"Did  I  say  anything  against  the  authorities?' 
asked  Kovalenko,  glaring  angrily  at  him.  'Please 
leave  me  alone!  I  am  an  honourable  man,  and  I 
decline  to  talk  to  a  person  like  you.  I  don't  like 
sneaks ! ' 

"Byelinkoff  began  nervously  to  bustle  about  and 


92  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

put  on  his  things.  You  see,  this  was  the  first  time  in 
his  life  that  he  had  heard  such  rudeness. 

"  'You  can  say  what  you  like,'  he  cried  as  he  stepped 
out  of  the  hall  onto  the  landing  of  the  stairs.  'I  must 
only  warn  you  of  one  thing.  Some  one  may  have  over- 
heard our  conversation  and  I  shall  have  to  report  it 
to  the  director  in  its  principal  features,  as  it  might  be 
misinterpreted  and  something  unpleasant  might  come 
of  it.  I  shall  be  obliged  to  do  this.' 

'  'To  report  it?     Go  ahead,  report  it!' 

"Kovalenko  seized  him  by  the  nape  of  the  neck  and 
pushed,  and  Byelinkoff  tumbled  down-stairs  with  his 
goloshes  rattling  after  him.  The  staircase  was  long 
and  steep,  but  he  rolled  safely  to  the  bottom,  picked 
himself  up,  and  touched  his  nose  to  make  sure  that  his 
spectacles  were  all  right.  At  the  very  moment  of  his 
descent  Varenka  had  come  in  with  two  ladies;  they 
stood  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs  and  watched  him,  and 
for  Byelinkoff  this  was  the  most  terrible  thing  of  all. 
He  would  rather  have  broken  his  neck  and  both  legs 
than  to  have  appeared  ridiculous;  the  whole  town 
would  now  know  it,  the  director,  the  trustees  would 
hear  of  it — oh,  something  unpleasant  would  come  of 
it!  There  would  be  another  caricature,  and  the  end 
of  it  would  be  that  he  would  have  to  resign. 

"As  he  picked  himself  up  Varenka  recognised  him. 
When  she  caught  sight  of  his  absurd  face,  his  wrinkled 
overcoat,  and  his  goloshes,  not  knowing  what  had  hap- 
pened but  supposing  that  he  had  fallen  down-stairs  of 


THE  MAN  IN  A  CASE  93 

his  own  accord,  she  could  not  control  herself  and 
laughed  till  the  whole  house  rang: 

"'Ha!  ha!  ha!' 

"This  pealing  and  rippling  'ha!  ha!  ha!'  settled 
everything — it  put  an  end  to  the  wedding  and  to  the 
earthly  career  of  Byelinkoff. 

"He  did  not  hear  what  Varenka  said  to  him;  he  saw 
nothing  before  his  eyes.  When  he  reached  home  he 
first  took  Varenka's  picture  off  .the  table,  then  he  went 
to  bed  and  never  got  up  again. 

"Three  days  later  Afanasi  came  to  me  and  asked  me 
whether  he  ought  not  to  send  for  a  doctor,  as  something 
was  happening  to  his  master.  I  went  to  see  Byelin- 
koff. He  was  lying  speechless  behind  his  bed  curtains, 
covered  with  a  blanket,  and  when  a  question  was 
asked  him  he  only  answered  yes  or  no,  and  not  another 
sound  did  he  utter.  There  he  lay,  and  about  the  bed 
roamed  Afanasi,  gloomy,  scowling,  sighing  profoundly, 
and  reeking  of  vodka  like  a  tap-room. 

"A  month  later  Byelinkoff  died.  We  all  went  to 
his  funeral,  that  is,  the  boys'  and  girls'  schools  and  the 
seminary.  As  he  lay  in  his  coffin  the  expression  on 
his  face  was  timid  and  sweet,  even  gay,  as  if  he  were 
glad  to  be  put  in  a  case  at  last  out  of  which  he  need 
never  rise.  Yes,  he  had  attained  his  ideal!  As  if  in 
his  honour,  the  day  of  his  funeral  was  overcast  and 
rainy,  and  all  of  us  wore  goloshes  and  carried  umbrellas. 
Varenka,  too,  was  at  the  funeral  and  burst  into  tears 
when  the  coffin  was  lowered  into  the  grave.  I  have 


94  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

noticed  that  Little  Russian  women  always  either  laugh 
or  cry,  they  know  no  middle  state. 

"I  must  confess  that  it  is  a  great  pleasure  to  bury 
such  people  as  Byelinkoff.  On  our  way  back  from  the 
cemetery  we  all  wore  sober,  Lenten  expressions;  no 
one  wished  to  betray  this  feeling  of  pleasure;  the  same 
feeling  that  we  used  to  have  long,  long  ago  in  childhood 
when  our  elders  went  away  from  home  and  we  could 
run  about  the  garden  for  a  few  hours  in  perfect  liberty. 
Oh,  liberty,  liberty!  Even  a  hint,  even  a  faint  hope 
of  its  possibility  lends  the  soul  wings,  does  it  not? 

"We  returned  from  the  cemetery  in  a  good  humour, 
but  before  a  week  had  elapsed  our  life  was  trickling 
on  as  sternly,  as  wearily,  as  senselessly  as  before;  a 
life  not  prohibited  in  a  bulletin  and  yet  not  quite  per- 
mitted— no  better  than  it  had  been! 

"And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  though  we  had  buried 
Byelinkoff,  how  many  more  people  in  cases  there  were 
left!  How  many  more  there  will  be!" 

"Yes,  so,  so,  quite  right,"  said  Ivan  Ivanitch  smok- 
ing his  pipe. 

"How  many  more  there  will  be!"  Burkin  repeated. 

The  schoolmaster  stepped  out  of  the  shed.  He  was 
a  small  man,  fat,  quite  bald,  with  a  black  beard  that 
reached  almost  to  his  waist;  two  dogs  followed  him 
out. 

"  What  a  moon !  What  a  moon ! "  he  exclaimed  look- 
ing up. 

It  was  already  midnight.    To  the  right  the  whole 


THE  MAN  IN  A  CASE  95 

village  lay  visible,  its  long  street  stretching  away  for 
three  or  four  miles.  Everything  was  wrapped  in  deep, 
peaceful  slumber;  not  a  movement,  not  a  sound;  it 
did  not  seem  possible  that  nature  could  lie  so  silent. 
Peace  fills  the  soul  when  one  sees  the  broad  street  of  a 
'village  on  a  moonlight  night  with  its  huts  and  its 
haystacks  and  its  dreaming  willows.  It  looks  so 
gentle  and  beautiful,  and  sad  in  its  rest,  screened  by 
the  shades  of  night  from  care  and  grief  and  toil.  The 
stars,  too,  seem  to  be  gazing  at  it  with  tenderness  and 
emotion,  and  one  feels  that  there  is  no  evil  in  the  world 
and  that  all  is  well.  To  the  left  the  fields  began  at 
the  edge  of  the  village  and  were  visible  for  miles  down 
to  the  horizon;  in  all  this  broad  expanse  there  was  also 
neither  movement  nor  sound. 

"Yes,  so,  so,  quite  right,"  Ivan  Ivanitch  repeated. 
"But  think  how  we  live  in  town,  so  hot  and  cramped, 
writing  unnecessary  papers  and  playing  vint — isn't 
that  also  a  case?  And  isn't  our  whole  life,  which  we 
spend  among  rogues  and  backbiters  and  stupid,  idle 
women,  talking  and  listening  to  nothing  but  folly — 
isn't  that  a  case?  Here!  If  you  like  I'll  tell  you  a 
very  instructive  story." 

"No,  it's  time  to  go  to  sleep,"  Burkin  said.  "To- 
morrow!" 

Both  men  went  into  the  shed  and  lay  down  on  the 
hay.  They  had  already  covered  themselves  up  and 
were  half  asleep  when  they  suddenly  heard  light  foot- 
steps approaching — tip — tip.  Somebody  was  walking 


96  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

by  the  shed.  The  footsteps  went  on  and  stopped, 
and  in  a  minute  came  back  again — tip — tip.  The 
dogs  growled. 

"That  was  Mavra,"  said  Burkin  as  the  sound  died 
away. 

"One  hears  and  sees  all  this  lying,"  said  Ivan  Ivan- 
itch,  turning  over  on  the  other  side.  "Nobody  calls 
one  a  fool  for  standing  it  all,  for  enduring  insults  and 
humiliations  without  daring  to  declare  oneself  openly 
on  the  side  of  free  and  honest  people.  One  has  to  lie 
oneself  and  smile,  all  for  a  crust  of  bread,  a  corner  to 
live  in,  and  a  little  rank,  which  is  not  worth  a  penny — 
no,  a  man  can't  go  on  living  like  this." 

"Oh,  come,  that's  out  of  another  opera,  Ivan  Ivan- 
itch,"  said  the  schoolmaster.  "Let's  go  to  sleep!" 

And  ten  minutes  later  Burkin  was  already  asleep. 
But  Ivan  Ivanitch,  sighing,  still  tossed  from  side  to 
side,  and  at  last  got  up  and  went  out  again  and  sat 
in  the  doorway  smoking  his  pipe. 


LITTLE  JACK 

JACK  JUKOFF  was  a  little  boy  of  nine  who,  three 
months  ago,  had  been  apprenticed  to  Aliakin,  the 
shoemaker.  On  Christmas  eve  he  did  not  go  to  bed. 
He  waited  until  his  master  and  the  foreman  had  gone 
out  to  church,  and  then  fetched  a  bottle  of  ink  and  a 
rusty  pen  from  his  master's  cupboard,  spread  out  a 
crumpled  sheet  of  paper  before  him,  and  began  to 
write.  Before  he  had  formed  the  first  letter  he  had 
more  than  once  looked  fearfully  round  at  the  door, 
glanced  at  the  icon,  on  each  side  of  which  were  ranged 
shelves  laden  with  boot-lasts,  and  sighed  deeply.  The 
paper  lay  spread  on  the  bench,  and  before  it  knelt 
Little  Jack. 

"Dear  grandpapa,  Constantino  Makaritch,"  he 
wrote,  "I  am  writing  you  a  letter.  I  wish  you  a 
merry  Christmas  and  I  hope  God  will  give  you  all  sorts 
of  good  things.  I  have  no  papa  or  mamma,  and  you 
are  all  I  have." 

Little  Jack  turned  his  eyes  to  the  dark  window,  on 
which  shone  the  reflection  of  the  candle,  and  vividly 
pictured  to  himself  his  grandfather,  Constantine  Ma- 
karitch: a  small,  thin,  but  extraordinarily  active  old 
man  of  sixty-five,  with  bleary  eyes  and  a  perpetually 
97 


98  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

smiling  face;  by  day  sleeping  in  the  kitchen  or  teasing 
the  cook;  by  night,  muffled  in  a  huge  sheepskin  coat, 
walking  about  the  garden  beating  his  watchman's 
rattle.  Behind  him,  hanging  their  heads,  pace  the 
dogs  Kashtanka  and  The  Eel,  so  called  because  he  is 
black  and  his  body  is  long  like  a  weasel's.  This  Eel 
is  uncommonly  respectful  and  affectionate;  he  gazes 
with  impartial  fondness  upon  strangers  and  friends 
alike;  but  his  credit,  in  spite  of  this,  is  bad.  Beneath 
the  disguise  of  a  humble  and  deferential  manner  he 
conceals  the  most  Jesuitical  perfidy.  Nobody  knows 
better  than  he  how  to  steal  up  and  grab  you  by  the 
leg,  how  to  make  his  way  into  the  ice-house,  or  filch 
a  hen  from  a  peasant.  His  hind  legs  have  been  broken 
more  than  once;  twice  he  has  been  hung,  and  every 
week  he  is  thrashed  within  an  inch  of  his  life;  but  he 
always  recovers. 

At  this  moment,  no  doubt,  grandfather  is  standing 
at  the  gate  blinking  at  the  glowing  red  windows  of  the 
village  church,  stamping  his  felt  boots,  and  teasing 
the  servants.  His  rattle  hangs  at  his  belt.  He  beats 
his  arms  and  hugs  himself  with  cold,  and,  giggling  after 
the  manner  of  old  men,  pinches  first  the  maid,  then 
the  cook. 

"Let's  have  some  snuff!"  he  says,  handing  the  women 
his  snuff-box. 

The  women  take  snuff  and  sneeze.  Grandfather 
goes  off  into  indescribable  ecstasies,  breaks  into  shouts 
of  laughter,  and  cries: 


LITTLE  JACK  99 

"  Wipe  it  off !    It's  freezing  on ! " 

Then  they  give  the  dogs  snuff.  Kashtanka  sneezes 
and  wrinkles  her  nose;  her  feelings  are  hurt,  and  she 
walks  away.  The  Eel  refrains  from  sneezing  out  of 
respect  and  wags  his  tail.  The  weather  is  glorious. 
The  night  is  dark,  but  the  whole  village  is  visible;  the 
white  roofs,  the  columns  of  smoke  rising  from  the 
chimneys,  the  trees,  silvery  with  frost,  and  the  snow- 
drifts. The  sky  is  strewn  with  gaily  twinkling  stars, 
and  the  milky  way  is  as  bright  as  if  it  had  been  washed 
and  scrubbed  with  snow  for  the  holiday. 

Little  Jack  sighed,  dipped  his  pen  in  the  ink,  and 
went  on: 

"I  had  a  dragging  yesterday.  My  master  dragged 
me  into  the  yard  by  my  hair  and  beat  me  with  a 
stirrup  because  I  went  to  sleep  without  meaning  to 
while  I  was  rocking  the  baby.  Last  week  my  mistress 
told  me  to  clean  some  herrings,  and  I  began  cleaning 
one  from  the  tail,  and  she  took  it  and  poked  its  head 
into  my  face.  The  foreman  laughs  at  me  and  sends 
me  for  vodka,  makes  me  steal  the  cucumbers,  and  then 
my  master  beats  me  with  whatever  comes  handy. 
And  I  have  nothing  to  eat.  I  get  bread  in  the  morning, 
and  porridge  for  dinner,  and  bread  for  supper.  My 
master  and  mistress  drink  up  all  the  tea  and  the  soup. 
And  they  make  me  sleep  in  the  hall,  and  when  the  baby 
cries  I  don't  sleep  at  all  because  I  have  to  rock  the 
cradle.  Dear  grandpa,  please  take  me  away  from  here, 
home  to  the  village.  I  can't  stand  it.  I  beg  you  on 


100  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

my  knees;  I  will  pray  to  God  for  you  all  my  life.  Take 
me  away  from  here,  or  else  I  shall  die " 

Little  Jack's  mouth  twisted;  he  rubbed  his  eyes  with 
a  grimy  fist  and  sobbed. 

"I  will  grind  your  tobacco  for  you,"  he  continued, 
"and  pray  to  God  for  you;  and  if  I  don't  you  can  kill 
me  like  Sidoroff's  goat.  And  if  you  think  I  ought  to 
work  I  can  ask  the  steward  please  to  let  me  clean  the 
boots,  or  I  can  do  the  ploughing  in  place  of  Teddy. 
Dear  grandpa,  I  can't  stand  it;  I  shall  die.  I  wanted 
to  run  away  to  the  village  on  foot,  but  I  haven't  any 
boots,  and  it  is  so  cold.  And  when  I  am  big  I  will 
always  take  care  of  you  and  not  allow  any  one  to  hurt 
you  at  all,  and  when  you  die  I  will  pray  to  God  for 
you  as  I  do  for  my  mother  Pelagea. 

"Moscow  is  a  big  city.  All  the  houses  are  manor 
houses,  and  there  are  lots  of  horses,  but  no  sheep,  and 
the  dogs  are  not  fierce.  The  children  don't  carry  stars,* 
and  they  don't  let  any  one  sing  in  church,  and  in  one 
store  I  saw  in  the  window  how  they  were  selling  fish- 
hooks with  the  lines  on  them,  and  there  was  a  fish  on 
every  hook,  and  the  hooks  were  very  large  and  one 
held  a  sturgeon  that  weighed  forty  pounds.  I  saw  a 
store  where  they  sell  all  kinds  of  guns  just  like  our 
master's  guns;  some  cost  a  hundred  roubles.  But  at 
the  butcher's  there  are  grouse  and  partridges  and  hares; 
but  the  butcher  won't  tell  where  they  were  killed. 

"Dear  grandpa,  when  they  have  the  Christmas  tree 
*  A  Russian  peasant  custom  at  Christmas  time. 


LITTLE  JACK  101 

at  the  big  house,  keep  some  gold  nuts  for  me  and  put 
them  away  in  the  green  chest.  Ask  Miss  Olga  for 
them  and  say  they  are  for  Little  Jack." 

Little  Jack  heaved  a  shuddering  sigh  and  stared  at  the 
window  again.  He  remembered  how  his  grandfather 
used  to  go  to  the  forest  for  the  Christmas  tree,  and 
take  his  grandchild  with  him.  Those  were  jolly  days. 
Grandfather  wheezed  and  grunted,  and  the  snow 
wheezed  and  grunted,  and  Little  Jack  wheezed  and 
grunted  in  sympathy.  Before  cutting  down  the  tree 
grandfather  would  finish  smoking  his  pipe  and  slowly 
take  snuff,  laughing  all  the  time  at  little,  shivering 
Jacky.  The  young  fir-trees,  muffled  in  snow,  stood 
immovable  and  wondered:  "Which  of  us  is  going  to 
die?"  Hares  flew  like  arrows  across  the  snow,  and 
grandfather  could  never  help  crying:  "Hold  on!  Hold 
on!  Hold  on!  Oh,  the  bobtailed  devil!" 

Then  grandfather  would  drag  the  fallen  fir-tree  up 
to  the  big  house,  and  there  they  would  all  set  to  work 
trimming  it.  The  busiest  of  all  was  Miss  Olga,  Jack's 
favourite.  While  Jack's  mother,  Pelagea,  was  still 
alive  and  a  housemaid  at  the  big  house  Miss  Olga  used 
to  give  Little  Jack  candy,  and  because  she  had  nothing 
better  to  do  had  taught  him  to  read  and  write  and  to 
count  up  to  a  hundred,  and  even  to  dance  the  quadrille. 

When  Pelagea  died  the  little  orphan  was  banished 
to  the  kitchen,  where  his  grandfather  was,  and  from 
there  he  was  sent  to  Moscow,  to  Aliakin,  the  shoe- 
maker. 


102  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"Do  come,  dear  grandpapa,"  Little  Jack  went  on. 
"Please  come;  I  beg  you  for  Christ's  sake  to  come  and 
take  me  away.  Have  pity  on  your  poor  little  orphan, 
because  every  one  scolds  me,  and  I'm  so  hungry,  and 
it's  so  lonely — I  can't  tell  you  how  lonely  it  is.  I  cry  all 
day  long.  And  the  other  day  my  master  hit  me  on 
the  head  with  a  boot-tree,  so  that  I  fell  down  and  al- 
most didn't  come  to  again.  And  give  my  love  to 
Nelly  and  one-eyed  Gregory  and  to  the  coachman, 
and  don't  let  any  one  use  my  accordion. 
"Your  grandson, 

"JOHN  JUKOFF. 

"Dear  grandpapa,  do  come." 

Little  Jack  folded  the  paper  in  four  and  put  it  in  an 
envelope  which  he  had  bought  that  evening  for  one 
copeck.  He  reflected  an  instant,  then  dipped  his  pen 
in  the  ink  and  wrote  the  address: 

"To  my  Grandpapa  in  the  Village." 

Then  he  scratched  his  head,  thought  a  moment,  and 
added: 

"Constantino  Makaritch." 

Delighted  to  have  finished  his  letter  without  in- 
terruption, he  put  on  his  cap  and,  without  waiting  to 
throw  his  little  overcoat  over  his  shoulders,  ran  out 
into  the  street  in  his  shirt. 


LITTLE  JACK  103 

The  butcher,  whom  he  had  asked  the  evening  before, 
had  told  him  that  one  drops  letters  into  the  mail-boxes, 
and  that  from  there  they  are  carried  all  over  the  world 
in  mail  wagons  with  ringing  bells,  driven  by  drivers 
who  are  drunk.  Little  Jack  ran  to  the  nearest  mail- 
box and  dropped  his  letter  in  the  opening. 

An  hour  later  he  was  sound  asleep,  lulled  by  the 
sweetest  hopes.  He  dreamed  he  saw  a  stove.  On  the 
stove  sat  his  grandfather  swinging  his  bare  legs  and 
reading  his  letter  to  the  cook.  Near  the  stove  walked 
The  Eel,  wagging  his  tail. 


DREAMS 

TWO  soldiers  are  escorting  to  the  county  town  a 
vagrant  who  does  not  remember  who  he  is.  One 
of  them  is  black-bearded  and  thick-set,  with  legs  so 
uncommonly  short  that,  seen  from  behind,  they  seem 
to  begin  much  lower  down  than  those  of  other  men; 
the  other  is  long,  lank,  spare,  and  straight  as  a  stick, 
with  a  thin  beard  of  a  dark-reddish  hue.  The  first 
waddles  along,  looking  from  side  to  side  and  sucking 
now  a  straw  and  now  the  sleeve  of  his  coat.  He  slaps 
his  thigh  and  hums  to  himself,  and  looks,  on  the  whole, 
light-hearted  and  care-free.  The  other,  with  his  lean 
face  and  narrow  shoulders,  is  staid  and  important- 
looking;  in  build  and  in  the  expression  of  his  whole  per- 
son he  resembles  a  priest  of  the  Starover  Faith  or  one  of 
those  warriors  depicted  on  antique  icons.  "For  his 
wisdom  God  has  enlarged  his  brow,"  that  is  to  say,  he 
is  bald,  which  still  more  enhances  the  resemblance. 
The  first  soldier  is  called  Andrew  Ptaka,  the  second 
Nikander  Sapojnikoff. 

The  man  they  are  escorting  is  not  in  the  least  like 
what  every  one  imagines  a  tramp  should  be.      He  is 
small  and  sickly  and  feeble,  with  little,  colourless,  ab- 
solutely undefined  features.     His  eyebrows  are  thin, 
104 


DREAMS  105 

his  glance  is  humble  and  mild,  and  his  whiskers  have 
barely  made  their  appearance  though  he  is  already 
past  thirty.  He  steps  timidly  along,  stooping,  with 
his  hands  thrust  into  his  sleeves.  The  collar  of  his 
threadbare,  unpeasant-like  little  coat  is  turned  right 
up  to  the  brim  of  his  cap,  so  that  all  that  can  venture 
to  peep  out  at  the  world  is  his  little  red  nose.  When  he 
speaks,  it  is  in  a  high,  obsequious  little  voice,  and  then 
he  immediately  coughs.  It  is  hard,  very  hard  to 
recognise  in  him  a  vagabond  "who  is  hiding  his  name. 
He  looks  more  like  some  impoverished,  God-forsaken 
son  of  a  priest,  or  a  clerk  discharged  for  intemperance, 
or  a  merchant's  son  who  has  essayed  his  puny  strength 
on  the  stage  and  is  now  returning  to  his  home  to  play 
out  the  last  act  of  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son. 
Perhaps,  judging  from  the  dull  patience  with  which 
he  battles  with  the  clinging  autumn  mud,  he  is  a 
fanatic;  some  youth  trained  for  a  monk  who  is  wan- 
dering from  one  monastery  to  another  all  over  Russia, 
doggedly  seeking  "a  life  of  peace  and  freedom  from 
sin,"  which  he  cannot  find. 

The  wayfarers  have  been  walking  a  long  time,  but 
for  all  their  efforts  they  cannot  get  away  from  the 
same  spot  of  ground.  Before  them  lie  ten  yards  of 
dark-brown,  muddy  road,  behind  them  lies  as  much; 
beyond  that,  wherever  they  turn,  rises  a  dense  wall  of 
white  fog.  They  walk  and  walk,  but  the  ground  they 
walk  on  is  always  the  same;  the  wall  comes  no  nearer; 
the  spot  remains  a  spot.  Now  and  then  they  catch 


106  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

glimpses  of  white,  irregular  cobblestones,  a  dip  in  the 
road,  or  an  armful  of  hay  dropped  by  some  passing 
wagon;  a  large  pool  of  muddy  water  gleams  for  a 
moment,  or  a  shadow,  vaguely  outlined,  suddenly  and 
unexpectedly  appears  before  them.  The  nearer  they 
come  to  this,  the  smaller  and  darker  it  grows;  they  come 
nearer  still,  and  before  them  rises  a  crooked  mile-post 
with  its  numbers  effaced,  or  a  woebegone  birch-tree, 
naked  and  wet,  like  a  wayside  beggar.  The  birch-tree 
is  whispering  something  with  the  remains  of  its  yellow 
foliage;  one  leaf  breaks  off  and  flutters  sluggishly  to 
the  ground,  and  then  again  there  come  fog  and  mud 
and  the  brown  grass  by  the  roadside.  Dim,  evil  tears 
hang  on  these  blades — not  the  tears  of  quiet  joy  that 
the  earth  weeps  when  she  meets  and  accompanies  the 
summer  sun,  and  with  which  at  dawn  she  quenches 
the  thirst  of  quail  and  rails  and  graceful,  long-billed 
snipe!  The  feet  of  the  travellers  are  caught  by  the 
thick,  sticky  mud;  every  step  costs  them  an  effort. 

Andrew  Ptaka  is  a  trifle  provoked.  He  is  scruti- 
nising the  vagrant  and  trying  to  understand  how  a 
live,  sober  man  could  forget  his  name. 

"You  belong  to  the  Orthodox  Church,  don't  you?" 
he  asks. 

"I  do,"  answers  the  tramp  briefly. 

"H'm — have  you  been  christened?" 

"Of  course  I  have;  I'm  not  a  Turk!  I  go  to  church 
and  observe  the  fasts  and  don't  eat  flesh  when  it's  for- 
bidden to  do  so " 


DREAMS  107 

"Well,  then,  what  name  shall  I  call  you  by?" 

"Call  me  what  you  please,  lad." 

Ptaka  shrugs  his  shoulders  and  slaps  his  thigh  in 
extreme  perplexity.  The  other  soldier,  Nikander,  pre- 
serves a  sedate  silence.  He  is  not  so  simple  as  Ptaka, 
and  evidently  knows  very  well  reasons  which  might 
induce  a  member  of  the  Orthodox  Church  to  conceal 
his  identity.  His  expressive  face  is  stern  and  cold. 
He  walks  apart  and  disdains  idle  gossip  with  his  com- 
panions. He  seems  to  be  endeavouring  to  show  to 
every  one  and  everything,  even  to  the  mist,  how  grave 
and  sensible  he  is. 

"The  Lord  only  knows  what  to  think  about  you!" 
pursues  Ptaka.  "Are  you  a  peasant  or  not?  Are 
you  a  gentleman  or  not?  Or  are  you  something  be- 
tween the  two?  I  was  rinsing  out  a  sieve  in  a  pond 
one  day  and  caught  a  little  monster  as  long  as  my 
finger  here,  with  gills  and  a  tail.  Thinks  I — it's  a  fish! 
Then  I  take  another  look  at  it— and  I'll  be  blessed  if  it 
didn't  have  feet!  It  wasn't  a  fish  and  it  wasn't  a 
reptile — the  devil  only  knows  what  it  was!  That's 
just  what  you  are.  What  class  do  you  belong  to?" 

"I  am  a  peasant  by  birth,"  sighs  the  tramp.  "My 
•mother  was  a  house  serf.  In  looks  I'm  not  a  peasant, 
and  that  is  because  fate  has  willed  it  so,  good  man. 
My  mother  was  a  nurse  in  a  gentleman's  house  and 
had  every  pleasure  the  heart  could  desire,  and  I,  as 
her  flesh  and  blood,  belonged,  in  her  lifetime,  to  the 
household.  They  petted  me  and  spoiled  me  and  beat 


108  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

me  till  they  beat  me  from  common  to  well-bred.  I 
slept  in  a  bed,  had  a  real  dinner  every  day,  and  wore 
trousers  and  low  shoes  like  any  little  noble.  What- 
ever my  mother  had  to  eat,  I  had.  They  gave  her 
dresses  and  dressed  me,  too.  Oh,  we  lived  well!  The 
candy  and  cake  I  ate  in  my  childhood  would  buy  a 
good  horse  now  if  I  could  sell  them!  My  mother 
taught  me  to  read  and  write,  and  from  the  time  I  was 
a  baby  instilled  the  fear  of  God  into  me  and  trained  me 
so  well  that  to  this  day  I  couldn't  use  an  impolite, 
peasant  word.  I  don't  drink  vodka,  boy,  and  I  dress 
cleanly  and  can  make  a  respectable  appearance  in  good 
society.  God  give  her  health  if  she  is  still  alive;  if 
she  is  dead,  take  her  soul,  0  Lord,  to  rest  in  thy 
heavenly  kingdom  where  the  blessed  find  peace!" 

The  tramp  uncovers  his  head,  with  its  sparse  bristles, 
casts  his  eyes  upward,  and  makes  the  sign  of  the  cross 
twice. 

"Give  her  peace,  O  Lord,  in  green  places!"  he  says 
in  a  drawling  voice,  more  like  an  old  woman's  than  a 
man's.  "Keep  thy  slave  Kcenia  in  all  thy  ways,  O 
Lord!  If  it  had  not  been  for  my  good  mother  I 
should  have  been  a  simple  peasant  now,  not  knowing  a 
thing.  As  it  is,  lad,  ask  me  what  you  please;  I  know 
everything:  the  Holy  Scriptures,  all  godly  things,  all 
the  prayers,  and  the  Catechisms.  I  live  according  to 
the  Scriptures;  I  do  wrong  to  no  one;  I  keep  my  body 
pure;  I  observe  the  fasts  and  eat  as  it  is  ordered. 
Some  men  find  pleasure  only  in  vodka  and  brawling, 


DREAMS  109 

but  when  I  have  time  I  sit  in  a  comer  and  read  a  book, 
and  as  I  read  I  cry  and  cry " 

"Why  do  you  cry?" 

"  Because  the  things  they  tell  of  are  so  pitiful.  Some- 
times you  pay  only  five  copecks  for  a  book  and  weep 
and  wail  over  it  to  despair " 

"Is  your  father  dead?"  asks  Ptaka. 

"I  don't  know,  lad.  It's  no  use  hiding  a  sin;  I  don't 
know  who  my  father  was.  What  I  think  is  that  I 
was  an  illegitimate  son  of  my  mother's.  My  mother 
lived  all  her  life  with  the  gentry  and  never  would 
marry  a  common  peasant." 

"So  she  flew  higher,  up  to  his  master!"  laughs 
Ptaka. 

"That  is  so.  My  mother  was  pious  and  godly,  and 
of  course  it  is  a  sin,  a  great  sin,  to  say  so,  but,  never- 
theless, maybe  I  have  noble  blood  in  my  veins.  Maybe 
I  am  a  peasant  in  station  only  and  am  really  a  high- 
born gentleman." 

The  "high-born  gentleman"  utters  all  this  in  a 
soft,  sickly  sweet  voice,  wrinkling  his  narrow  brows 
and  emitting  squeaky  noises  from  his  cold,  red,  little 
nose. 

Ptaka  listens  to  him,  eyes  him  with  astonishment, 
and  still  shrugs  his  shoulders. 

After  going  four  miles  the  soldiers  and  the  tramp 
sit  down  on  a  little  knoll  to  rest. 

"Even  a  dog  can  remember  his  name,"  mutters 
Ptaka.  "I  am  called  Andrew  and  he  is  called  Ni- 


110  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

kander;  every  man  has  his  God-given  name  and  no 
one  could  possibly  forget  it — not  possibly!" 

"Whose  business  is  it  of  any  one's  to  know  who  I 
am?"  sighs  the  tramp,  leaning  his  cheek  on  his  hand. 
"And  what  good  would  it  do  me  if  they  knew?  If  I 
were  allowed  to  go  wherever  I  liked  I  should  be  worse 
off  than  I  am  now.  I  know  the  law,  my  Christian 
friends — now  I  am  a  vagrant  who  does  not  remember 
his  name,  and  the  worst  they  could  do  to  me  would 
be  to  send  me  to  eastern  Siberia  with  thirty  or  forty 
lashes,  but  if  I  should  tell  them  my  real  name  and 
station  I  should  be  sent  to  hard  labour  again — I 
know!" 

"You  mean  to  say  you  have  been  a  convict?" 

"I  have,  my  good  friend.  My  head  was  shaved  and 
I  wore  chains  for  four  years." 

"What  for?" 

"For  murder,  good  man.  When  I  was  still  a  boy, 
about  eighteen  years  old,  my  mother  put  arsenic  into 
our  master's  glass  by  mistake  instead  of  soda.  There 
were  a  great  many  different  little  boxes  in  the  store- 
room and  it  was  not  hard  to  mistake  them." 

The  tramp  sighs,  shakes  his  head,  and  continues: 

"She  was  a  godly  woman,  but  who  can  say?  The 
soul  of  another  is  a  dark  forest.  Maybe  she  did  it  by 
mistake.  Maybe  it  was  because  her  master  had  at- 
tached another  servant  to  himself  and  her  heart  could 
not  forgive  the  insult.  Perhaps  she  did  put  it  in  on 
purpose — God  only  knows!  I  was  young  then  and 


DREAMS  111 

couldn't  understand  everything.  I  remember  now  that 
our  master  did,  in  fact,  take  another  mistress  at  that 
time  and  that  my  mother  was  deeply  hurt.  Our  trial 
went  on  for  two  years  after  that.  My  mother  was 
condemned  to  twenty  years'  penal  servitude  and  I  to 
seven  on  account  of  my  youth." 

"And  what  charge  were  you  convicted  on?" 

"For  being  an  accomplice/  I  handed  our  master 
the  glass.  It  was  always  that  way:  my  mother  would 
prepare  the  soda  and  I  would  hand  him  the  glass. 
But  I  am  confessing  all  this  before  you,  brothers,  as 
before  God.  You  won't  tell  any  one " 

"No  one  will  ever  ask  us,"  says  Ptaka.  "So  that 
means  you  ran  away  from  prison,  does  it?" 

"Yes,  I  ran  away,  good  friend.  Fourteen  of  us  es- 
caped. God  be  with  them!  They  ran  away  and  took 
me  along,  too.  Now  judge  for  yourself,  lad,  and  tell 
me  honestly  whether  I  have  any  reason  for  telling  my 
name?  I  should  be  condemned  to  penal  servitude 
again;  and  what  sort  of  a  convict  am  I?  I  am  delicate 
and  sickly;  I  like  cleanliness  in  my  food  and  in  the 
places  where  I  sleep.  When  I  pray  to  God  I  like  to 
have  a  little  shrine  lamp  or  a  candle  burning,  and  I 
don't  like  to  have  noises  going  on  round  me  when  I'm 
praying.  When  I  prostrate  myself  I  don't  like  to 
have  the  floor  all  filthy  and  spat  over,  and  I  prostrate 
myself  forty  times  morning  and  night  for  my  mother's 
salvation." 

The  tramp  takes  off  his  cap  and  crosses  himself. 


112  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"But  let  them  send  me  to  eastern  Siberia  if  they 
want  to!"  he  cries.  "I'm  not  afraid  of  that." 

"What?     Is  that  better?" 

"It  is  an  entirely  different  affair.  At  hard  labour 
you  are  no  better  off  than  a  crab  in  a  basket.  You  are 
crowded  and  pushed  and  hustled;  there's  not  a  quiet 
corner  to  take  breath;  it's  a  hell  on  earth — the  Mother 
of  God  forbid  it!  A  ruffian  you  are,  and  a  ruffian's 
treatment  you  receive — worse  than  any  dog's.  You  get 
nothing  to  eat;  there  is  nowhere  to  sleep  and  nowhere 
to  say  your  prayers.  In  exile  it's  different.  You  first 
enrol  yourself  in  the  company,  as  every  one  else  does. 
The  government  is  compelled  by  law  to  give  you 
your  share  of  land.  Yes,  indeed!  Land,  they  say, 
is  cheap  there,  as  cheap  as  snow.  You  can  take  all 
you  want!  They  would  give  me  land  for  farming,  lad, 
and  land  for  a  garden,  and  land  for  a  house.  Then  I 
would  plough  and  sow,  as  other  men  do,  raise  cattle 
and  bees  and  sheep  and  dogs — I'd  get  myself  a  Siberian 
cat  to  keep  the  rats  and  mice  from  eating  my  property, 
I'd  build  me  a  house,  brothers,  and  buy  icons;  and, 
God  willing,  I'd  marry  and  have  children 

The  tramp  is  murmuring  to  himself  now  and  has 
ceased  looking  at  his  listeners;  he  is  gazing  off  some- 
where to  one  side.  Artless  as  his  reveries  are,  he  speaks 
with  such  sincerity  and  such  heartfelt  earnestness  that 
it  is  hard  not  to  believe  what  he  says.  The  little 
mouth  of  the  vagrant  is  twisted  by  a  smile,  and  his 
whole  face,  his  eyes,  and  his  nose  are  numbed  and 


DREAMS  113 

paralysed  by  the  foretaste  of  far-off  happiness.  The 
soldiers  listen  and  regard  him  earnestly,  not  without 
compassion.  They  also  believe  what  he  says. 

"I  am  not  afraid  of  Siberia,"  the  tramp  murmurs  on. 
"Siberia  and  Russia  are  the  same  thing.  They  have 
the  same  God  there  as  here,  and  the  same  Czar,  and 
they  speak  the  language  of  Orthodox  Christians,  as  I 
am  speaking  with  you;  only  there  is  greater  plenty,  and 
the  people  are  richer.  Everything  is  better  there. 
Take,  for  example,  the  rivers.  They  are  a  thousand 
times  finer  than  ours.  And  fish!  The  fishing  in  them 
is  simply  beyond  words!  Fishing,  brothers,  is  .the 
greatest  joy  of  my  life.  I  don't  ask  for  bread;  only  let 
me  sit  and  hold  a  fishing-line!  Indeed,  that  is  true! 
I  catch  fish  on  a  hook  and  line  and  in  pots  and  with 
bow  nets,  and  when  the  ice  comes  I  use  cast  nets.  I 
am  not  strong  enough  to  fish  with  a  cast  net  myself; 
so  I  have  to  hire  a  peasant  for  five  copecks  to  do  that 
for  me.  Heavens,  what  fun  it  is!  It's  like  seeing 
your  own  brother  again  to  catch  an  eel  or  a  mudfish! 
And  you  have  to  treat  every  fish  differently,  I  can  tell 
you.  You  use  a  minnow  for  one,  and  a  worm  for  an- 
other, and  a  frog  or  a  grasshopper  for  a  third;  you've 
got  to  know  all  that.  Take,  for  example,  the  eel.  The 
eel  isn't  a  dainty  fish;  it  will  take  even  a  newt.  Pikes 
like  earthworms — garfish,  butterflies.  There  is  no 
greater  joy  on  earth  than  fishing  for  chubs  in  swift 
water.  You  bait  your  hook  with  a  butterfly  or  a 
beetle,  so  that  it  will  float  on  the  surface;  and  you  let 


114  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

your  line  run  out  some  twenty  or  thirty  yards  without 
a  sinker;  then  you  stand  in  the  water  without  your 
trousers  and  let  the  bait  float  down  with  the  current 
till — tug!  and  there's  a  chub  on  the  hook!  Then  you 
have  to  watch  ever  so  closely  for  just  the  right  moment 
to  hook  it  or  the  confounded  thing  will  go  off  with 
your  bait.  The  moment  it  twitches  the  line  you've 
got  to  pull;  there  isn't  a  second  to  lose!  The  number 
of  fish  I  have  caught  in  my  life  is  a  caution!  When  we 
were  escaping  and  the  other  convicts  were  asleep  in 
the  forest,  I  couldn't  sleep  and  would  go  off  in  search 
of  a  river.  The  rivers  there  are  so  wide  and  swift 
and  steep-banked — it's  a  caution.  And  all  along  their 
shores  lie  dense  forests.  The  trees  are  so  high  that  it 
makes  your  head  swim  to  look  up  to  the  top  of  them. 
According  to  prices  here  every  one  of  those  pine-trees 

is  worth  ten  roubles " 

Under  the  confused  stress  of  his  imagination,  the 
dream  pictures  of  the  past,  and  the  sweet  foretaste  of 
happiness,  the  piteous  little  man  stops  speaking  and 
only  moves  his  lips  as  if  whispering  to  himself.  The 
feeble,  beatific  smile  does  not  leave  his  face.  The  sol- 
diers say  nothing.  Their  heads  have  sunk  forward 
onto  their  breasts,  and  they  are  lost  in  meditation. 
In  the  autumn  silence,  when  a  chill,  harsh  fog  from  the 
earth  settles  on  the  soul  and  rises  like  a  prison  wall 
before  one  to  testify  to  the  narrow  limits  of  man's 
freedom,  ah!  then  it  is  sweet  to  dream  of  wide,  swift 
rivers  with  bold,  fertile  banks,  of  dense  forests,  of 


DREAMS  115 

boundless  plains!  Idly,  peacefully,  the  fancy  pictures 
to  itself  a  man,  a  tiny  speck,  appearing  on  the  steep,  un- 
inhabited bank  of  a  river  in  the  early  morning,  before 
the  flush  of  dawn  has  faded  from  the  sky.  The  sum- 
mits of  the  everlasting  pines  rise  piled  high  in  terraces 
on  either  side  of  the  stream  and,  muttering  darkly, 
look  sternly  at  that  free  man.  Roots,  great  rocks, 
and  thorny  bushes  obstruct  his  path,  but  he  is  strong 
of  body  and  valiant  of  heart  and  fears  neither  the 
pines  nor  the  rocks  nor  the  solitude  nor  the  rolling 
echoes  that  reiterate  every  footfall.^ 

The  imagination  of  the  soldiers  is  painting  for  them 
pictures  of  a  free  life  which  they  have  never  lived.  Is 
it  that  they  darkly  recall  images  of  things  heard  long 
ago?  Or  have  these  visions  of  a  life  of  liberty  come 
down  to  them  with  their  flesh  and  blood  as  an  inheri- 
tance from  their  remote,  wild  ancestors?  God  only 
knows! 

The  first  to  break  the  silence  is  Nikander,  who  un- 
til now  has  not  let  fall  a  word.  Perhaps  he  is  jealous 
of  the  vagrant's  visionary  happiness;  perhaps  he 
feels  in  his  heart  that  dreams  of  bliss  are  incongruous 
amidst  surroundings  of  grey  mist  and  brown-black 
mud — at  any  rate,  he  looks  sternly  at  the  tramp  and 
says: 

"That  is  all  very  well,  brother;  that  is  all  very  fine, 
but  you'll  never  reach  that  land  of  plenty!  How  could 
you?  You  would  go  thirty  miles  and  then  give  up  the 
ghost — a  little  half -dead  creature  like  you!  You've 


116  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

only  walked  four  miles  to-day  and  yet,  look  at  you! 
You  can't  seem  to  get  rested  at  all!" 

The  tramp  turns  slowly  to  Nikander  and  the  blissful 
smile  fades  from  his  face.  He  looks  with  dismay  at  the 
grave  countenance  of  the  soldier  as  if  he  had  been 
caught  doing  wrong  and  seems  to  have  recollected 
something,  for  he  nods  his  head.  Silence  falls  once 
more.  All  three  are  busy  with  their  own  thoughts. 
The  soldiers  are  trying  to  force  their  minds  to  grasp 
what  perhaps  God  alone  can  conceive  of:  the  terrible 
expanse  that  lies  between  them  and  that  land  of  free- 
dom. Images  more  clear,  precise,  and  terrifying  are 
crowding  into  the  vagrant's  head — courts  of  justice, 
dungeons  for  exiles  and  for  convicts,  prison  barracks, 
weary  halts  along  the  road,  the  cold  of  winter,  illness, 
the  death  of  his  companions — all  rise  vividly  before 
him. 

The  tramp  blinks,  and  little  drops  stand  out  upon 
his  brow.  He  wipes  his  forehead  with  his  sleeve,  draws 
a  deep  breath  as  if  he  had  just  jumped  out  of  a  hot  oven, 
wipes  his  forehead  with  the  other  sleeve,  and  glances 
fearfully  behind  him. 

"It  is  quite  true  that  you  could  never  get  there," 
Ptaka  assents.  "You're  not  a  walker!  Look  at  your- 
self— all  skin  and  bone!  It  would  kill  you,  brother." 

"Of  course  it  would  kill  him;  he  couldn't  possibly 
do  it,"  declares  Nikander.  "He'll  be  sent  straight  to 
the  hospital,  anyway,  as  it  is.  That's  a  fact!" 

The  nameless  wanderer  looks  with  terror  at  the 


DREAMS  117 

stern,  impassive  faces  of  his  evil-boding  fellow  trav- 
ellers; then,  lowering  his  eyes,  he  rapidly  crosses  him- 
self without  taking  off  his  cap.  He  is  trembling  all 
over,  his  head  is  shaking,  and  he  is  beginning  to 
writhe  like  a  caterpillar  that  some  one  has  stepped  on. 

"Come  on!  Time  to  go!"  cries  Nikander,  rising. 
"We  have  rested  long  enough!" 

Another  minute  and  the  travellers  are  plodding 
along  the  muddy  road.  The  tramp  is  stooping  more 
than  before  and  has  thrust  his  hands  still  deeper  into 
the  sleeves  of  his  coat.  Ptaka  is  silent. 


THE  DEATH  OF  AN  OFFICIAL 

ONE  beautiful  evening  the  not  less  beautiful  minor 
government  official  Ivan  Tcherviakoflf  was  sit- 
ting in  the  second  row  of  the  orchestra  looking  through 
his  opera-glasses  at  "Les  Cloches  de  Corneville."  As 
he  sat  there  he  felt  himself  to  be  in  the  seventh  heaven 
of  happiness.  But  suddenly  (in  stories  one  often  finds 
this  "suddenly";  authors  are  right — life  is  full  of  the 
unexpected),  suddenly  his  face  grew  wrinkled,  his  eyes 
rolled,  and  he  held  his  breath — he  took  down  his  opera- 
glasses,  bent  forward,  and — ha-choo!  He  sneezed,  as 
you  see.  Sneezing  is  not  prohibited  to  any  one  any- 
where. Peasants  sneeze,  and  chiefs  of  police  sneeze, 
and  even  privy  councilors  sneeze  sometimes;  every 
one  sneezes.  Tcherviakoff  was  in  nowise  embarrassed; 
he  wiped  his  nose  with  his  handkerchief  and  glanced 
about  him  politely  to  make  sure  that  he  had  not  dis- 
turbed any  one  by  his  sneezing.  And  then  he  felt  him- 
self perforce  abashed.  He  saw  that  an  old  man  who 
was  sitting  in  front  of  him  in  the  first  row  was  pain- 
fully wiping  his  bald  spot  and  the  back  of  his  neck 
with  his  glove  and  muttering  something.  In  this  old 
man  Tcherviakoff  recognised  General  Brizjaloff  of  the 
Department  of  Highways. 

118 


THE  DEATH  OF  AN  OFFICIAL        119 

"I  sneezed  on  him!"  thought  Tcherviakoff.  "He 
is  not  my  chief,  but  still  it  is  awkward.  I  must  apolo- 
gise." 

Tcherviakoff  cleared  his  throat,  shifted  himself  for- 
ward, and  whispered  in  the  general's  ear: 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  your  Excellency;  I  sneezed  on 
you.  I  accidentally " 

"Never  mind,  never  mind— '• — " 

"For  Heaven's  sake,  excuse  me.    I — I  didn't  mean 

"Oh,  sit  down,  please!  Let  me  listen  to  what  is 
being  said." 

Tcherviakoff  was  overwhelmed  with  confusion.  He 
smiled  idiotically  and  began  looking  at  the  stage.  He 
looked  at  it  but  no  longer  felt  any  sensation  of  bliss. 
Anxiety  was  beginning  to  torment  him.  During  the 
next  entr'acte  he  approached  Brizjaloff,  walked  along 
at  his  side,  and,  conquering  his  timidity,  murmured: 

"I  sneezed  on  your  Excellency.  Excuse  me.  You 
see,  I — did  not  do  it  to " 

"Oh,  enough  of  that!  I  had  already  forgotten  it, 
and  you  keep  on  at  the  same  thing!"  the  general  said, 
impatiently  twitching  his  lower  lip. 

"He  says  he  has  forgotten  it,  but  there  is  malice  in 
his  eye,"  thought  Tcherviakoff,  glancing  at  the  general 
mistrustfully.  "He  won't  even  speak.  I  must  explain 
that  I  didn't  mean  to — that  sneezing  is  a  law  of  nature 
— or  else  he  might  think  I  was  spitting.  If  he  doesn't 
think  so  now  he  will  later." 


120  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

On  reaching  his  home  Tcherviakoff  told  his  wife  of 
his  rudeness.  He  thought  she  regarded  what  had  hap- 
pened too  flippantly.  She  was  only  alarmed  at  first; 
when  she  learned  that  Brizjaloff  was  not  their  chief 
she  felt  reassured. 

"Still,  you  must  go  and  apologise,"  she  said.  "He 
might  think  you  didn't  know  how  to  behave  in  society." 

"That's  just  it!  I  have  apologised,  but  he  acted  so 
curiously;  he  didn't  say  anything  sensible.  But,  then, 
there  was  no  time  for  conversation." 

Next  day  Tcherviakoff  shaved,  donned  his  new  un- 
dress uniform,  and  went  to  explain  things  to  Brizjaloff. 
As  he  entered  the  general's  reception-room  his  eye 
fell  on  a  great  crowd  of  petitioners  assembled  there, 
and  in  their  midst  was  the  general,  who  had  already 
begun  his  reception.  Having  interrogated  several  of 
the  petitioners,  the  general  raised  his  eyes  to  Tcher- 
viakoff. 

"Yesterday,  at  the  'Arcadian,'  if  you  remember, 
your  Excellency — "  the  little  official  began,  "I  sneezed 
and — accidentally  spattered  you.  Excu " 

"What  nonsense!    Rot!    What  can  I  do  for  you?" 

"He  won't  speak  to  me!"  thought  Tcherviakoff, 
turning  pale.  "He  is  angry;  I  must  explain  to 
him " 

When  the  general  had  finished  his  interview  with 
the  last  petitioner  and  was  going  into  an  inner  apart- 
ment, Tcherviakoff  stepped  up  to  him  and  murmured: 

"Your  Excellency!    If  I  dare  to  trouble  your  Ex- 


THE  DEATH  OF  AN  OFFICIAL        121 

cellency,  it  is  only,  I  can  assure  you,  from  a  feeling  of 
repentance.  I  did  not  do  it  on  purpose.  Your  Ex- 
cellency must  know  that " 

The  general  made  a  tearful  face  and  waved  his  hand. 

"You  are  simply  joking,  sir!"  he  said  disappearing 
behind  the  door. 

"  He  says  I  am  joking ! "  thought  Tcherviakoff .  "  But 
there  is  no  joke  about  this  at -all.  He  is  a  general  and 
he  can't  see  that!  As  that  is  the  case,  I'll  not  beg 
that  swashbuckler's  pardon  again,  confound  him!  I'll 
write  him  a  letter,  but  I'll  not  come  here  again;  I'll  be 
hanged  if  I  will!" 

Thus  Tcherviakoff  reflected  walking  homeward.  He 
did  not  write  that  letter  to  the  general.  He  thought 
and  thought  and  couldn't  for  the  life  of  him  think  of 
anything  to  write.  He  had  to  go  next  day  himself  and 
explain. 

"I  came  yesterday  and  troubled  your  Excellency," 
he  mumbled,  as  the  general  looked  at  him  interroga- 
tively, "but  not  with  the  idea  of  joking,  as  your  Ex- 
cellency was  good  enough  to  remark.  I  wanted  to  beg 
your  pardon  because  in  sneezing  I — I  did  not  dream  of 
joking.  How  could  I  dare  to?  To  joke  would  be  to 
show  no  respect  for  persons — it  would — 

"Get  out!"  roared  the  general,  suddenly  quaking 
and  growing  purple  in  the  face. 

"Er — what?"  whispered  Tcherviakoff,  swooning 
with  horror. 

"Get  out!"  repeated  the  general,  stamping. 


122  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

Something  seemed  to  break  in  Tcherviakoff's  breast. 
He  stumbled  through  the  door  and  out  into  the  street, 
not  seeing  or  hearing  a  thing,  and  crawled  along  the 
sidewalk.  Going  home  mechanically,  he  lay  down  on  a 
sofa,  without  taking  off  his  undress  uniform,  and — died. 


AGATHA 

DURING  my  stay  in  the  province  of  S I 
spent  much  of  my  time  in  the  company  of  Sava 
Stukatch,  or  Savka  for  short,  the  watchman  of  the  com- 
munal vegetable  gardens  of  the  village  of  Dubofka. 
These  gardens  on  the  bank  of  the  river  were  my  fa- 
vourite resort  for  what  may  be  called  fishing  "in  gen- 
eral"— when  you  leave  home  without  knowing  the  hour 
or  day  of  your  return  and  take  with  you  a  supply  of 
provisions  and  every  conceivable  article  of  fishing- 
tackle.  To  tell  the  truth,  I  cared  less  for  the  fishing 
than  I  did  for  the  peaceful  idling,  the  chatting  with 
Savka,  the  eating  at  all  hours,  and  the  long  watches  in 
the  quiet  summer  nights. 

Savka  was  a  young  fellow  of  twenty-five,  tall,  hand- 
some, and  hard  as  a  brick.  He  had  a  reputation  for 
cleverness  and  good  sense,  could  read  and  write,  and 
seldom  drank  vodka;  but,  powerful  and  young  as  he 
was,  as  a  workman  he  was  not  worth  one  copper  copeck. 
Though  as  tough  as  whipcord,  his  strong  muscles  were 
impregnated  with  a  heavy,  invincible  indolence.  Like 
every  one  else  in  the  village,  he  had  formerly  lived  in  a 
hut  of  his  own  and  had  had  his  own  share  of  the  land, 
but  he  had  neither  ploughed  nor  sowed  nor  followed 
any  trade.  His  old  mother  had  gone  begging  from  door 
123 


124  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

to  door  while  he  lived  like  the  birds  of  the  air,  not 
knowing  in  the  morning  what  he  would  eat  at  noon. 
It  was  not  will,  nor  energy,  nor  pity  for  his  mother 
that  were  lacking;  he  simply  felt  no  inclination  for  toil 
and  did  not  see  the  necessity  for  it.  A  sense  of  peace 
and  an  inborn,  almost  artistic,  passion  for  an  idle,  dis- 
orderly life  emanated  from  his  whole  being.  When 
his  healthy  young  body  craved  muscular  exercise  the 
lad  would  abandon  himself  completely  for  a  short  time 
to  some  untrammelled  but  absurd  occupation  such  as 
sharpening  a  lot  of  useless  stakes  or  running  races  with 
the  women.  His  favourite  state  was  one  of  concen- 
trated immobility.  He  was  capable  of  remaining  for 
hours  in  one  place,  motionless,  and  with  his  eyes  fixed 
on  the  same  spot.  He  moved  when  the  fancy  seized 
him,  and  then  only  when  he  saw  a  chance  for  some 
swift,  impetuous  action  such  as  catching  a  running 
dog  by  the  tail,  snatching  the  kerchief  from  the  head 
of  a  woman,  or  leaping  across  a  broad  ditch. 

It  follows  that,  being  so  stingy  of  movement,  Savka 
was  as  poor  as  Job's  turkey  and  lived  worse  than  a 
vagabond.  As  time  went  on  his  arrears  had  accumu- 
lated and,  young  and  strong  as  he  was,  he  had  been 
sent  by  the  commune  to  take  an  old  man's  place  as 
watchman  and  scarecrow  in  the  village  communal  gar- 
dens. He  did  not  care  a  snap  of  his  finger  how  much 
he  was  laughed  at  for  his  untimely  old  age.  This  oc- 
cupation, so  quiet  and  so  well  adapted  for  motionless 
contemplation,  exactly  suited  his  tastes. 


AGATHA  125 

I  happened  to  be  visiting  Savka  one  beautiful  eve- 
ning in  May.  I  lay,  I  remember,  on  a  worn,  tattered 
rug  near  a  shed  from  which  came  the  thick,  choking 
smell  of  dried  grass.  With  my  hands  behind  my  head 
I  lay  staring  before  me.  At  my  feet  was  a  wooden 
pitchfork;  beyond  that  a  dark  object  stood  out  sharply 
— it  was  Savka's  little  dog  Kutka — and  not  more  than 
fifteen  feet  beyond  Kutka  the  ground  fell  away  ab- 
ruptly to  the  steep  bank  of  the  river.  I  could  not  see 
the  water  from  where  I  lay,  only  the  tops  of  the  bushes 
crowding  along  the  bank  and  the  jagged  and  winding 
contours  of  the  opposite  shore.  Beyond  the  river,  on 
a  dark  hill,  the  huts  of  the  village  where  my  Savka  had 
lived  lay  huddled  together  like  startled  young  par- 
tridges. The  evening  light  was  fading  behind  the  hill, 
only  a  pale  strip  of  crimson  remained,  and  across  this 
little  clouds  were  gathering  as  ashes  gather  on  dying 
embers. 

To  the  right  of  the  garden  lay  a  dark  alder  wood 
whispering  softly  and  shivering  sometimes  as  a  sudden 
breeze  wandered  by.  A  bright  little  fire  was  twinkling 
in  the  dusk,  there,  where  the  eye  could  no  longer  dis- 
tinguish the  fields  from  the  sky.  At  a  short  distance 
from  me  sat  Savka,  cross-legged,  his  head  bowed, 
thoughtfully  gazing  at  Kutka.  Our  hooks  had  long 
since  been  baited  and  dropped  into  the  stream,  and 
there  was  nothing  for  us  to  do  but  surrender  ourselves 
to  the  repose  so  much  loved  by  the  never-weary  but 
eternally  resting  Savka.  Though  the  sunset  had  not 


126  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

faded  entirely  the  summer  night  had  folded  the  world 
in  its  soothing,  sleep-giving  embrace. 

Nature  had  sunk  into  her  first  profound  slumber; 
only  in  the  wood  some  night-bird  unknown  to  me 
uttered  a  slow,  lazy  cry  which  sounded  like,  "Is  that 
Ni-ki-ta?"  and  then  answered  himself:  "Nikita!  Ni- 
kita!  Nikita!" 

"Why  aren't  the  nightingales  singing  this  evening?" 
I  asked. 

Savka  turned  slowly  toward  me.  His  features  were 
large  but  well  formed  and  expressive  and  gentle  as  a 
woman's.  He  looked  with  kind,  pensive  eyes,  first  at 
the  wood  and  then  at  the  thicket,  then  quietly  took 
out  a  little  pipe  from  his  pocket,  put  it  to  his  lips,  and 
blew  a  few  notes  like  a  hen  nightingale.  At  once,  as 
if  answering  his  call,  a  rail-bird  "chucked"  from  the 
opposite  shore. 

"There  goes  a  nightingale  for  you!"  laughed  Savka. 
"Chuck-chuck!  chuck-chuck!  as  if  it  were  jerking  at  a 
hook,  and  yet  it  thinks  it  is  singing!" 

"I  like  those  birds,"  I  said.  "Do  you  know  that 
when  the  time  for  migrating  comes  the  rail  doesn't 
fly  but  runs  along  the  ground?  It  only  flies  across 
rivers  and  the  ocean  and  goes  all  the  rest  of  the  way 
on  foot." 

"The  little  monkey!"  murmured  Savka,  gazing  with 
respect  in  the  direction  of  the  calling  rail. 

Knowing  how  much  Savka  loved  listening,  I  told 
him  all  I  had  learned  about  rails  from  my  sportsman's 


AGATHA  127 

books.  From  rails  we  slipped  imperceptibly  into  mi- 
gration. Savka  listened  with  rapt  attention,  not  mov- 
ing an  eyelash,  smiling  with  pleasure. 

"In  which  country  are  the  birds  most  at  home,  in 
ours  or  over  there?"  he  asked. 

"  In  ours,  of  course.  They  are  hatched  here  and  here 
they  raise  their  young.  This  is  their  native  land,  and 
they  only  fly  away  to  escape  being  frozen  to  death." 

"How  strange!"  Savka  sighed,  stretching.  "One 
can't  talk  of  anything  but  what  it  is  strange.  Take 
that  shouting  bird  over  there,  take  people,  take  this 
little  stone — there's  a  meaning  in  everything.  Oh,  if 
I  had  only  known  you  were  going  to  be  here  this  eve- 
ning, sir,  I  wouldn't  have  told  that  woman  to  come! 
She  asked  if  she  might." 

"Oh,  you  mustn't  mind  me!"  I  said.  "I  shan't  in- 
terfere. I  can  go  and  lie  in  the  wood." 

"What  an  idea!  It  wouldn't  have  killed  her  to  wait 
till  to-morrow.  If  she  were  sitting  here  now  and  lis- 
tening, we  could  do  nothing  but  drivel.  One  can't 
talk  sense  when  she  is  around." 

"Are  you  expecting  Daria?" 

"No,  a  new  one  asked  to  come  here  this  evening; 
Agatha,  the  switchman's  wife." 

Savka  uttered  this  in  his  usual  impassive  way,  in  a 
dull  voice,  as  if  he  were  speaking  of  tobacco  or  por- 
ridge, but  I  jumped  with  astonishment.  I  knew  Agatha 
well.  She  was  still  very  young,  not  more  than  nineteen 
or  twenty,  and  less  than  a  year  ago  had  married  a 


128  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

railway  switchman — a  fine,  bold  young  peasant.  She 
lived  in  the  village,  and  her  husband  came  home  to  her 
every  night  from  the  railway. 

"These  affairs  of  yours  with  women  will  end  badly 
some  day,"  I  said  sadly. 

"Never  mind!" 

Then,  after  a  moment's  reflection,  Savka  added: 

"So  I  have  told  the  women,  but  they  won't  listen; 
the  idiots  don't  care." 

Silence  fell.  The  shadows  deepened,  the  outlines  of 
all  objects  faded  into  the  darkness.  The  streak  of 
light  behind  the  hill  was  altogether  extinguished,  and 
the  stars  shone  ever  clearer  and  brighter.  The  mourn- 
ful, monotonous  chirping  of  the  crickets,  the  calling  of 
the  rail-bird,  and  the  whistling  of  the  quail  seemed  not 
to  break  the  nocturnal  silence  but  rather  to  add  to  it 
a  still  greater  depth.  It  was  as  if  the  stars,  and  not 
the  birds  and  insects,  were  singing  softly  and  charming 
our  ears  as  they  looked  down  from  heaven. 

Savka  broke  silence  first.  He  slowly  turned  his  re- 
gard from  Kutka's  black  form  to  me,  and  said: 

"This  is  tedious  for  you,  sir,  I  can  see.  Let's  have 
supper." 

Without  waiting  for  my  consent,  he  crawled  on  his 
stomach  into  the  shed,  rummaged  about  there  until 
the  whole  building  shook  like  a  leaf,  and  crawled  back 
with  a  bottle  of  vodka  and  an  earthenware  bowl,  which 
he  placed  before  me.  In  the  bowl  were  baked  eggs, 
fried  cakes  of  rye  flour,  some  pieces  of  black  bread,  and 


AGATHA  129 

a  few  other  things.  We  each  had  a  drink  out  of  a 
crooked  glass  that  refused  to  stand  up,  and  began  our 
meal.  Oh,  that  coarse,  grey  salt,  those  dirty,  greasy 
cakes,  those  eggs  as  tough  as  India-rubber,  how  good 
they  all  tasted! 

"You  live  the  life  of  a  tramp,  and  yet  you  have  all 
these  good  things!"  I  exclaimed,  pointing  to  the  bowl. 
"Where  do  you  get  them?" 

"The  women  bring  them,"  grunted  Savka. 

"Why?" 

"Oh,  out  of  pity." 

Not  only  the  bill  of  fare  but  Savka's  clothes,  too, 
bore  traces  of  feminine  "pity."  I  noticed  that  he  wore 
a  new  worsted  girdle  that  evening  and  that  a  little 
copper  cross  was  suspended  round  his  grimy  neck  by  a 
bright  crimson  ribbon.  I  knew  the  weakness  of  the 
fair  sex  for  Savka,  and  I  knew,  too,  how  unwilling  he 
was  to  speak  of  it,  so  I  did  not  pursue  the  subject. 
Besides,  I  had  no  time  to  say  more.  Kutka,  who  had 
been  sitting  near  by  in  patient  expectation  of  scraps, 
suddenly  pricked  up  his  ears  and  growled.  We  heard 
an  intermittent  splashing  of  water. 

"Some  one  is  crossing  the  ford,"  said  Savka. 

In  a  few  minutes  Kutka  growled  again  and  emitted 
a  sound  like  a  cough. 

"Here!"  cried  his  master. 

Light  footsteps  rustled  in  the  night,  and  a  woman's 
form  came  out  of  the  wood.  I  recognised  her  in  spite 
of  the  darkness;  it  was  Agatha. 


130  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

She  came  forward  timidly,  stopped,  and  breathed 
heavily.  It  was  probably  more  fear  at  fording  the 
river  by  night  than  her  walk  which  had  robbed  her  of 
breath.  When  she  saw  two  men  by  the  shed  instead 
of  one  she  gave  a  faint  cry  and  fell  back  a  step. 

"Oh,  is  that  you?"  asked  Savka,  thrusting  a  cake 
into  his  mouth. 

"I — I — "  she  faltered,  dropping  a  little  bundle  she 
carried  and  glancing  at  me.  "Jacob  sent  you  his 
greetings,  and  told  me  to  give  you  this — this — 

"Why  do  you  tell  a  story?  Jacob,  indeed!"  Savka 
laughed  at  her.  "No  fibbing!  Sit  down  and  pay  us  a 
visit." 

Agatha  cast  another  glance  at  me  and  irresolutely 
sat  down. 

"I  had  already  given  you  up  this  evening,"  said 
Savka  after  a  long  pause.  "What  makes  you  sit 
there  like  that?  Eat  something.  Or  is  it  a  drink  of 
vodka  you  want?" 

"What  are  you  thinking  about?"  cried  Agatha. 
"Am  I  a  drunkard?" 

"Drink  it!     It  warms  the  heart.     Come  on!" 

Savka  handed  Agatha  the  crooked  glass.  She  drank 
the  vodka  slowly,  without  eating  anything  after  it, 
and  only  blew  noisily  through  her  lips. 

"So  you  have  brought  something  with  you?"  Savka 
continued  as  he  undid  the  bundle.  His  voice  took  on 
a  playfully  indulgent  tone.  "She  can't  come  without 
bringing  something.  Aha!  A  pie  and  potatoes!  These 


AGATHA  131 

people  live  well,"  he  sighed,  facing  me.  "They  are  the 
only  ones  in  the  village  who  still  have  potatoes  left 
over  from  winter." 

It  was  too  dark  to  see  Agatha's  face,  but  from  the 
movement  of  her  shoulders  and  head  I  thought  that 
she  kept  her  eyes  fixed  on  Savka's  face.  I  decided  to 
take  a  stroll  so  as  not  to  make  the  third  at  a  tryst, 
and  rose  to  my  feet.  But  at  that  moment  a  nightin- 
gale in  the  wood  suddenly  gave  out  two  deep  contralto 
notes.  Half  a  minute  later  it  poured  forth  a  fine,  high 
trill  and,  having  tried  its  voice  thus,  began  to  sing. 

Savka  leaped  up  and  listened.  "That  is  last  night's 
bird ! "  he  exclaimed.  "  Wait " 

"Let  it  alone!"  I  called  after  him.  "What  do  you 
want  with  it?" 

Savka  waved  his  hand  as  much  as  to  say,  "Don't 
shout!"  and  vanished  into  the  darkness.  He  could 
be  a  splendid  hunter  and  fisherman  when  he  liked,  but 
this  gift  was  as  much  wasted  as  his  strength.  He  was 
too  lazy  to  turn  it  to  account,  and  his  passion  for  the 
chase  he  expended  on  idle  feats.  He  loved  to  seize 
nightingales  in  his  hands,  or  to  shoot  pike  with  bird 
shot,  or  to  stand  by  the  river  for  hours  at  a  time  trying 
with  all  his  might  to  catch  a  little  fish  on  a  large  hook. 

When  she  was  left  with  me  Agatha  coughed  and 
drew  her  hand  several  times  across  her  brow.  The 
vodka  was  already  beginning  to  go  to  her  head. 

"How  have  you  been,  Agatha?"  I  asked  after  a  long 
silence,  when  it  seemed  awkward  not  to  say  something. 


132  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"Very  well,  thank  you — you  won't  tell  any  one,  will 
you,  master?"  she  added  suddenly  in  a  whisper. 

"  No,  no,"  I  reassured  her.  "  But  you  are  very  brave, 
Agatha.  What  if  Jacob  should  find  out?" 

"He  won't  find  out." 

"He  might." 

"No,  I  shall  get  back  before  he  does.  He  works 
on  the  railway  now  and  comes  home  when  the  mail- 
train  goes  through,  and  I  can  hear  it  coming  from 
here." 

Agatha  again  drew  her  hand  across  her  brow  and 
looked  in  the  direction  which  Savka  had  taken.  The 
nightingale  was  still  singing.  A  night-bird  flew  by 
close  to  the  ground;  as  it  caught  sight  of  us  it  swerved, 
rustled  its  wings,  and  flew  away  across  the  river. 

The  nightingale  soon  ceased,  but  still  Savka  did  not 
return.  Agatha  rose  to  her  feet,  took  two  or  three 
restless  steps,  and  sat  down  again. 

"Where  is  he?"  she  burst  out.  "The  train  won't 
wait  till  to-morrow!  I  must  go  at  once!" 

"Savka!"  I  shouted.     "Savka!" 

Not  even  an  echo  answered.  Agatha  stirred  un- 
easily and  rose  once  more. 

"It  is  time  to  go!"  she  cried  in  a  troubled  voice. 
"The  train  will  be  here  in  a  moment.  I  know  when 
the  trains  come." 

The  poor  girl  was  right.  In  less  than  ten  minutes 
we  heard  a  distant  noise.  Agatha  looked  long  at  the 
wood  and  impatiently  wrung  her  hands. 


AGATHA  133 

"Oh,  where  is  he?"  she  cried  with  a  nervous  laugh. 
"I  am  going;  indeed  I  am  going!" 

Meanwhile,  the  rumbling  grew  louder.  The  clanking 
of  the  wheels  was  distinguishable  now  from  the  deep 
panting  of  the  engine.  A  whistle  blew  and  the  train 
thundered  across  a  bridge.  Another  minute  and  all 
was  still. 

"I'll  wait  one  second  more,"  sighed  Agatha,  sitting 
down  resolutely.  "I  don't  care  what  happens,  I'll 
wait." 

At  last  Savka  appeared  in  the  gloom.  He  was 
humming  softly  and  his  bare  feet  fell  noiselessly  on  the 
mellow  earth  of  the  garden. 

"Let  me  tell  you  the  bad  luck,"  he  cried  with  a 
merry  laugh.  "  Just  as  I  reached  the  bush  and  stretched 
out  my  hand  he  stopped  singing!  Oh,  you  little  rat! 
I  waited  and  waited  for  him  to  begin  again  and  finally 
snapped  my  fingers  at  him " 

Savka  dropped  awkwardly  down  beside  Agatha  and 
caught  her  round  the  waist  with  both  arms  to  keep  his 
balance. 

"Why,  you're  as  black  as  a  thunder-cloud!  What's 
the  matter?"  he  asked. 

For  all  his  warm-hearted  simplicity,  Savka  despised 
women.  He  treated  them  carelessly,  in  an  offhand 
way,  and  even  sank  so  low  as  to  laugh  with  contempt 
at  their  feeling  for  himself.  Heaven  knows  if  this 
careless  disdain  may  not  have  been  one  of  the  secrets 
of  his  charm  for  the  village  Dulcineas.  He  was  grace- 


134  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

ful  and  comely,  and  a  quiet  caress  always  shone  in  his 
eyes  even  when  they  rested  on  the  women  he  despised, 
but  his  outward  appearance  alone  could  not  account 
for  the  fascination  he  exercised.  Beside  his  happy 
exterior  and  his  odd  ways,  it  seems  as  if  the  touching 
role  played  by  Savka  must  also  have  exerted  its  in- 
fluence over  the  women.  He  was  known  to  every  one 
as  a  failure,  an  unfortunate  exile  from  his  native  hut. 

"Ho-ho!"  he  cried.  "Let's  have  another  drink, 
Brother  Agatha!" 

I  rose  and  walked  the  length  of  the  garden,  picking 
my  way  among  the  beds  of  vegetables.  They  lay  like 
large,  flat  graves,  and  an  odour  rose  from  them  of  fresh 
earth  and  moist,  tender  leaves  newly  wet  with  dew. 
The  little  red  fire  still  gleamed  and  seemed  to  wink  a 
smiling  greeting. 

I  heard  a  blissful  laugh.     It  was  Agatha. 

"And  the  train?"  I  remembered.  "It  came  long 
ago!" 

I  waited  a  little  while  and  then  went  back  to  the  shed. 
Savka  was  sitting  motionless,  with  his  legs  crossed, 
softly,  almost  inaudibly,  humming  a  monosyllabic  song 
that  sounded  like: 

"Oh,  you — come  you — you  and  I — 

Overpowered  by  the  vodka,  by  Savka's  careless 
caresses,  and  by  the  sultry  heat  of  the  night,  Agatha 
lay  on  the  ground  with  her  head  against  his  knees. 

"Why,  Agatha,  the  train  came  in  long  ago!"  I 
cried. 


AGATHA  135 

Savka  seized  the  suggestion.  "Yes,  yes,  it's  time 
for  you  to  go!"  he  said,  raising  his  head. 

Agatha  started  up  and  looked  at  me. 

"It's  long  past  the  time!"  I  said. 

Agatha  turned  and  raised  herself  on  one  knee.  She 
was  suffering.  For  a  minute  her  whole  figure,  as  well 
as  I  could  see  in  the  darkness,,  expressed  struggle  and 
vacillation.  There  was  a  moment  when  she  drew  her- 
self up  to  rise,  as  if  she  had  summoned  her  strength, 
but  here  some  irresistible,  implacable  force  smote  her 
from  head  to  foot  and  she  dropped  again. 

"Oh,  what  do  I  care?"  she  cried  with  a  wild,  deep 
laugh,  and  in  that  laugh  rang  reckless  determination, 
impotence,  pain. 

I  walked  quietly  into  the  wood  and  from  there  went 
down  to  the  river.  The  stream  lay  asleep.  A  soft 
flower  on  a  high  stem  brushed  my  cheek  like  a  child 
who  tries  to  show  that  he  is  still  waking.  Having  noth- 
ing to  do,  I  felt  for  one  of  the  lines  and  pulled  it  in. 
It  resisted  feebly  and  then  hung  limp.  Nothing  had 
been  caught.  The  village  and  the  opposite  shore  were 
invisible.  A  light  flashed  in  one  of  the  huts  but  quickly 
went  out.  I  searched  along  the  bank  and  found  a 
hollow  which  I  had  discovered  in  the  daytime,  and  in 
this  I  ensconced  myself  as  if  in  an  easy  chair.  I  sat 
for  a  long  time.  I  saw  the  stars  begin  to  grow  misty 
and  dim;  I  felt  a  chill  pass  like  a  light  sigh  over  the 
earth,  stirring  the  leaves  of  the  dreaming  willows. 

"A-ga-tha!"  cried  a  faint  voice  on  the  other  shore. 


136  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

It  was  the  frightened  husband  searching  for  his  wife 
through  the  village.  At  the  same  moment  a  burst  of 
laughter  came  from  the  garden,  from  the  wife  who  was 
trying,  in  a  few  hours  of  happiness,  to  make  up  for  the 
torture  that  awaited  her  on  the  morrow. 

I  fell  into  a  doze. 

When  I  awoke,  Savka  was  sitting  beside  me  lightly 
tapping  my  shoulder.  The  river,  the  wood,  both 
shores,  the  green,  newly  washed  trees  and  fields  were 
flooded  with  bright  morning  light.  The  rays  of  the 
rising  sun  beat  on  my  back  from  between  the  slender 
trunks  of  the  trees. 

"  So  you  are  fishing, "  chuckled  Savka.     "  Get  up ! " 

I  rose,  stretched  myself  blissfully,  and  my  awaken- 
ing lungs  greedily  drank  in  the  moist,  scented  air. 

"Has  Agatha  gone?"  I  asked. 

"There  she  is."  Savka  pointed  in  the  direction  of 
the  ford. 

I  looked  and  saw  Agatha.  Dishevelled,  her  ker- 
chief slipping  from  her  hair,  she  was  holding  up  her 
skirts  and  wading  across  the  river.  Her  feet  scarcely 
moved. 

"She  feels  the  shoe  pinching,"  murmured  Savka, 
gazing  at  her  with  half -closed  eyes.  "She  is  hanging 
her  tail  as  she  goes.  They  are  as  silly  as  cats  and  as 
timid  as  hares,  those  women.  The  idiot  wouldn't  go 
when  she  was  told  to  last  night,  and  now  she  will 
catch  it,  and  I'll  be  had  up!  There'll  be  another  row 
about  women." 


AGATHA  187 

Agatha  stepped  out  onto  the  bank  and  started 
across  the  fields  to  the  village.  At  first  she  walked 
boldly,  but  emotion  and  terror  soon  had  their  way 
with  her;  she  looked  back  fearfully  and  stopped, 
panting. 

"She  is  frightened,"  Savka  smiled  sadly,  with  his 
eyes  on  the  bright-green  ribbon  that  stretched  across 
the  dewy  grass  behind  Agatha..  "She  doesn't  want  to 
go  on.  Her  husband  has  been  standing  there  waiting 
for  her  for  an  hour.  Do  you  see  him?" 

Savka  smiled  as  he  spoke  the  last  words,  but  my 
heart  stood  still.  In  the  road,  near  one  of  the  huts,  on 
the  outskirts  of  the  village,  stood  Jacob  with  his  eyes 
fixed  on  his  returning  wife.  He  did  not  stir  from  one 
spot  but  stood  as  still  as  a  post.  What  were  his 
thoughts  as  he  looked  at  her?  What  words  had  he 
prepared  to  receive  her  with?  Agatha  stood  still  for 
some  time,  looked  back  again  as  if  expecting  succour 
from  us,  and  went  on.  Never  have  I  seen  any  one, 
whether  drunk  or  sober,  walk  with  such  a  gait.  Agatha 
seemed  to  be  writhing  under  her  husband's  gaze. 
First  she  zigzagged,  and  then  stopped  and  trampled  the 
ground  in  one  spot,  throwing  out  her  arms,  her  knees 
bending  under  her,  and  then  staggered  back.  After 
she  had  gone  a  hundred  paces  she  looked  back  once 
more  and  sat  down. 

I  looked  at  Savka's  face.  It  was  pale  and  drawn 
with  that  mixture  of  pity  and  aversion  that  men  feel 
at  the  sight  of  a  suffering  animal. 


138  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"What  is  joy  for  the  cat  is  tears  for  the  mouse,"  he 
sighed. 

Suddenly  Agatha  jumped  up,  threw  back  her  head, 
and  advanced  with  firm  footsteps  toward  her  husband. 
She  was  resolved  now,  one  could  see,  and  had  plucked 
up  her  courage. 


THE  BEGGAK 

"TV'IND  sir,  have  pity;    turn  your  attention  to  a 

JX..  poor,  hungry  man!  For  three  days  I  have  had 
nothing  to  eat;  I  haven't  five  copecks  for  a  lodging, 
I  swear  it  before  God.  For  eight  years  I  was  a  village 
school-teacher  and  then  I  lost  my  place  through  in- 
trigues. I  fell  a  victim  to  calumny.  It  is  a  year  now 
since  I  have  had  anything  to  do " 

The  advocate  Skvortsoff  looked  at  the  ragged,  fawn- 
coloured  overcoat  of  the  suppliant,  at  his  dull,  drunken 
eyes,  at  the  red  spot  on  either  cheek,  and  it  seemed  to 
him  as  if  he  had  seen  this  man  somewhere  before. 

"  I  have  now  had  an  offer  of  a  position  in  the  prov- 
ince of  Kaluga,"  the  mendicant  went  on, "but  I  haven't 
the  money  to  get  there.  Help  me  kindly ;  I  am  ashamed 
to  ask,  but — I  am  obliged  to  by  circumstances." 

Skvortsoff's  eyes  fell  on  the  man's  overshoes,  one  of 
which  was  high  and  the  other  low,  and  he  suddenly  re- 
membered something. 

"Look  here,  it  seems  to  me  I  met  you  day  before 
yesterday  in  Sadovaya  Street,"  he  said;  "but  you  told 
me  then  that  you  were  a  student  who  had  been  ex- 
pelled, and  not  a  village  school-teacher.  Do  you  re- 
member? " 

139 


140  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"N-no,  that  can't  be  so,"  mumbled  the  beggar, 
taken  aback.  "I  am  a  village  school-teacher,  and  if 
you  like  I  can  show  you  my  papers." 

"Have  done  with  lying!  You  called  yourself  a 
student  and  even  told  me  what  you  had  been  expelled 
for.  Don't  you  remember?" 

Skvortsoff  flushed  and  turned  from  the  ragged 
creature  with  an  expression  of  disgust. 

"This  is  dishonesty,  my  dear  sir!"  he  cried  angrily. 
"This  is  swindling!  I  shall  send  the  police  for  you, 
damn  you!  Even  if  you  are  poor  and  hungry,  that 
does  not  give  you  any  right  to  lie  brazenly  and  shame- 
lessly!" 

The  waif  caught  hold  of  the  door-handle  and  looked 
furtively  round  the  antechamber,  like  a  detected  thief. 

"I — I'm  not  lying — "  he  muttered.  "I  can  show 
you  my  papers." 

"Who  would  believe  you?"  Skvortsoff  continued  in- 
dignantly. "Don't  you  know  that  it's  a  low,  dirty 
trick  to  exploit  the  sympathy  which  society  feels  for 
village  school-teachers  and  students?  It's  revolting!" 

Skvortsoff  lost  his  temper  and  began  to  berate  the 
mendicant  unmercifully.  The  impudent  lying  of  the 
ragamuffin  offended  what  he,  Skvortsoff,  most  prized 
in  himself:  his  kindness,  his  tender  heart,  his  com- 
passion for  all  unhappy  beings.  That  lie,  an  attempt 
to  take  advantage  of  the  pity  of  its  "subject,"  seemed 
to  him  to  profane  the  charity  which  he  liked  to  ex- 
tend to  the  poor  out  of  the  purity  of  his  heart.  At  first 


THE  BEGGAR  141 

the  waif  continued  to  protest  innocence,  but  soon  he 
grew  silent  and  hung  his  head  in  confusion. 

"Sir!"  he  said,  laying  his  hand  on  his  heart,  "the 
fact  is  I — was  lying!  I  am  neither  a  student  nor  a 
school-teacher.  All  that  was  a  fiction.  Formerly  I 
sang  in  a  Russian  choir  and  was  sent  away  for  drunk- 
enness. But  what  else  can  I  do?  I  can't  get  along 
without  lying.  No  one  will  give  me  anything  when  I 
tell  the  truth.  With  truth  a  man  would  starve  to 
death  or  die  of  cold  for  lack  of  a  lodging.  You  reason 
justly,  I  understand  you,  but — what  can  I  do?" 

"What  can  you  do?  You  ask  what  you  can  do?" 
cried  Skvortsoff,  coming  close  to  him.  "Work!  That's 
what  you  can  do!  You  must  work!" 

"Work — yes,  I  know  that  myself;  but  where  can  I 
find  work?" 

"Rot!  You're  young  and  healthy  and  strong;  you 
could  always  find  work  if  you  only  wanted  to,  but 
you're  lazy  and  spoiled  and  drunken!  There's  a  smell 
about  you  like  a  tap-room.  You're  rotten  and  false  to 
the  core,  and  all  you  can  do  is  to  lie.  When  you  con- 
sent to  lower  yourself  to  work,  you  want  a  job  in  an 
office  or  in  a  choir  or  as  a  marker  at  billiards — any  em- 
ployment for  which  you  can  get  money  without  doing 
anything!  How  would  you  like  to  try  your  hand  at 
manual  labour?  No,  you'd  never  be  a  porter  or  a 
factory  hand;  you're  a  man  of  pretentious,  you 
are!" 

"By  God,   you  judge  harshly!"   cried  the  beggar 


142  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

with  a  bitter  laugh.  "Where  can  I  find  manual  la- 
bour? It's  too  late  for  me  to  be  a  clerk  because  in 
trade  one  has  to  begin  as  a  boy;  no  one  would  ever 
take  me  for  a  porter  because  they  couldn't  order  me 
about;  no  factory  would  have  me  because  for  that  one 
has  to  know  a  trade,  and  I  know  none." 

"Nonsense!  You  always  find  some  excuse!  How 
would  you  like  to  chop  wood  for  me?" 

"I  wouldn't  refuse  to  do  that,  but  in  these  days  even 
skilled  wood-cutters  find  themselves  sitting  without 
bread." 

"Huh!  You  loafers  all  talk  that  way.  As  soon  as 
an  offer  is  made  you,  you  refuse  it.  Will  you  come 
and  chop  wood  for  me?" 

"Yes,  sir;  I  will." 

"Very  well;  we'll  soon  find  out.     Splendid— we'll 

Skvortsoff  hastened  along,  rubbing  his  hands,  not 
without  a  feeling  of  malice,  and  called  his  cook  out  of 
the  kitchen. 

"Here,  Olga,"  he  said,  "take  this  gentleman  into 
the  wood-shed  and  let  him  chop  wood." 

The  tatterdemalion  scarecrow  shrugged  his  shoulders, 
as  if  in  perplexity,  and  went  irresolutely  after  the  cook. 
It  was  obvious  from  his  gait  that  he  had  not  con- 
sented to  go  and  chop  wood  because  he  was  hungry 
and  wanted  work,  but  simply  from  pride  and  shame, 
because  he  had  been  trapped  by  his  own  words.  It 
was  obvious,  too,  that  his  strength  had  been  under- 


THE  BEGGAR  143 

mined  by  vodka  and  that  he  was  unhealthy  and  did 
not  feel  the  slightest  inclination  for  toil. 

Skvortsoff  hurried  into  the  dining-room.  From  its 
windows  one  could  see  the  wood-shed  and  everything 
that  went  on  in  the  yard.  Standing  at  the  window, 
Skvortsoff  saw  the  cook  and  the  beggar  come  out  into 
the  yard  by  the  back  door  and  make  their  way  across 
the  dirty  snow  to  the  shed.'  Olga  glared  wrathfully 
at  her  companion,  shoved  him  aside  with  her  elbow, 
unlocked  the  shed,  and  angrily  banged  the  door. 

"We  probably  interrupted  the  woman  over  her 
coffee,"  thought  Skvortsoff.  "What  an  ill-tempered 
creature!" 

Next  he  saw  the  pseudo-teacher,  pseudo-student  seat 
himself  on  a  log  and  become  lost  in  thought  with  his 
red  cheeks  resting  on  his  fists.  The  woman  flung  down 
an  axe  at  his  feet,  spat  angrily,  and,  judging  from  the 
expression  of  her  lips,  began  to  scold  him.  The  beg- 
gar irresolutely  pulled  a  billet  of  wood  toward  him,  set 
it  up  between  his  feet,  and  tapped  it  feebly  with  the 
axe.  The  billet  wavered  and  fell  down.  The  beggar 
again  pulled  it  to  him,  blew  on  his  freezing  hands,  and 
tapped  it  with  his  axe  cautiously,  as  if  afraid  of  hit- 
ting his  overshoe  or  of  cutting  off  his  finger.  The 
stick  of  wood  again  fell  to  the  ground. 

Skvortsoff' s  anger  had  vanished  and  he  now  began 
to  feel  a  little  sorry  and  ashamed  of  himself  for  having 
set  a  spoiled,  drunken,  perchance  sick  man  to  work  at 
menial  labour  in  the  cold. 


144  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"Well,  never  mind,"  he  thought,  going  into  his  study 
from  the  dining-room.  "I  did  it  for  his  own  good." 

An  hour  later  Olga  came  in  and  announced  that  the 
wood  had  all  been  chopped. 

"Good!  Give  him  half  a  rouble,"  said  Skvortsoff. 
"  If  he  wants  to  he  can  come  back  and  cut  wood  on  the 
first  day  of  each  month.  We  can  always  find  work  for 
him." 

On  the  first  of  the  month  the  waif  made  his  appear- 
ance and  again  earned  half  a  rouble,  although  he  could 
barely  stand  on  his  legs.  From  that  day  on  he  often 
appeared  in  the  yard  and  every  time  work  was  found 
for  him.  Now  he  would  shovel  snow,  now  put  the 
wood-shed  in  order,  now  beat  the  dust  out  of  rugs  and 
mattresses.  Every  time  he  received  from  twenty  to 
forty  copecks,  and  once,  even  a  pair  of  old  trousers 
were  sent  out  to  him. 

When  Skvortsoff  moved  into  another  house  he 
hired  him  to  help  in  the  packing  and  hauling  of  the 
furniture.  This  time  the  waif  was  sober,  gloomy,  and 
silent.  He  hardly  touched  the  furniture,  and  walked 
behind  the  wagons  hanging  his  head,  not  even  making 
a  pretence  of  appearing  busy.  He  only  shivered  in  the 
cold  and  became  embarrassed  when  the  carters  jeered 
at  him  for  his  idleness,  his  feebleness,  and  his  tattered, 
faijcy  overcoat.  After  the  moving  was  over  Skvort- 
soff sent  for  him. 

"Well,  I  see  that  my  words  have  taken  effect,"  he 
said,  handing  him  a  rouble.  "Here's  for  your  pains. 


THE  BEGGAR  145 

I  see  you  are  sober  and  have  no  objection  to  work. 
What  is  your  name?" 

"Lushkoff." 

"Well,  Lushkoff,  I  can  now  offer  you  some  other, 
cleaner  employment.  Can  you  write?" 

"I  can." 

"Then  take  this  letter  to  a  friend  of  mine  to-morrow 
and  you  will  be  given  some  copying  to  do.  Work 
hard,  don't  drink,  and  remember  what  I  have  said  to 
you.  Good-bye!" 

Pleased  at  having  put  a  man  on  the  right  path, 
Skvortsoff  tapped  Lushkoff  kindly  on  the  shoulder  and 
even  gave  him  his  hand  at  parting.  Lushkoff  took  the 
letter,  and  from  that  day  forth  came  no  more  to  the 
yard  for  work. 

Two  years  went  by.  Then  one  evening,  as  Skvortsoff 
was  standing  at  the  ticket  window  of  a  theatre  paying 
for  his  seat,  he  noticed  a  little  man  beside  him  with  a 
coat  collar  of  curly  fur  and  a  worn  sealskin  cap.  This 
little  individual  timidly  asked  the  ticket  seller  for  a 
seat  in  the  gallery  and  paid  for  it  in  copper  coins. 

"Lushkoff,  is  that  you?"  cried  Skvortsoff,  recognis- 
ing in  the  little  man  his  former  wood-chopper.  "How 
are  you?  What  are  you  doing?  How  is  everything 
with  you?" 

"All  right.  I  am  a  notary  now  and  get  thirty -five 
roubles  a  month." 

"Thank  Heaven!  That's  fine!  I  am  delighted  for 
your  sake.  I  am  very,  very  glad,  Lushkoff.  You  see, 


146  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

you  are  my  godson,  in  a  sense.  I  gave  you  a  push  along 
the  right  path,  you  know.  Do  you  remember  what  a 
roasting  I  gave  you,  eh?  I  nearly  had  you  sinking 
into  the  ground  at  my  feet  that  day.  Thank  you,  old 
man,  for  not  forgetting  my  words." 

"Thank  you,  too,"  said  Lushkoff.  "If  I  hadn't 
come  to  you  then  I  might  still  have  been  calling  my- 
self a  teacher  or  a  student  to  this  day.  Yes,  by  flying 
to  your  protection  I  dragged  myself  out  of  a  pit." 

"I  am  very  glad,  indeed." 

"Thank  you  for  your  kind  words  and  deeds.  You 
talked  splendidly  to  me  then.  I  am  very  grateful  to 
you  and  to  your  cook.  God  bless  that  good  and  noble 
woman!  You  spoke  finely  then,  and  I  shall  be  in- 
debted to  you  to  my  dying  day;  but,  strictly  speaking, 
it  was  your  cook,  Olga,  who  saved  me." 

"How  is  that?" 

"Like  this.  When  I  used  to  come  to  your  house  to 
chop  wood  she  used  to  begin:  'Oh,  you  sot,  you!  Oh, 
you  miserable  creature!  There's  nothing  for  you  but 
ruin.'  And  then  she  would  sit  down  opposite  me  and 
grow  sad,  look  into  my  face  and  weep.  'Oh,  you  un- 
lucky man !  There  is  no  pleasure  for  you  in  this  world 
and  there  will  be  none  in  the  world  to  come.  You 
drunkard!  You  will  burn  in  hell.  Oh,  you  unhappy 
one!'  And  so  she  would  carry  on,  you  know,  in  that 
strain.  I  can't  tell  you  how  much  misery  she  suffered, 
how  many  tears  she  shed  for  my  sake.  But  the  chief 
thing  was — she  used  to  chop  the  wood  for  me.  Do 


THE  BEGGAR  147 

you  know,  sir,  that  I  did  not  chop  one  single  stick  of 
wood  for  you?  She  did  it  all.  Why  this  saved  me, 
why  I  changed,  why  I  stopped  drinking  at  the  sight 
of  her  I  cannot  explain.  I  only  know  that,  owing  to 
her  words  and  noble  deeds  a  change  took  place  in  my 
heart;  she  set  me  right  and  I  shall  never  forget  it. 
However,  it  is  time  to  go  now;  there  goes  the  bell." 
Lushkoff  bowed  and  departed  to  the  gallery. 


CHILDREN 

PAPA,  mamma,  and  Aunt  Nadia  are  not  at  home. 
They  have  gone  to  a  christening  party  at  the  old 
officer's — the  one  that  always  rides  a  little  grey  horse — 
and  Grisha,  Annie,  Aliosha,  Sonia,  and  Andrew,  the 
cook's  son,  are  sitting  at  the  dining-room  table  playing 
loto,  waiting  for  their  return.  To  tell  the  truth,  it  is 
already  past  bedtime,  but  how  can  they  possibly  go  to 
sleep  without  first  finding  out  from  mamma  what  the 
baby  looked  like  and  what  there  had  been  for  sup- 
per? 

The  table  is  lit  by  a  hanging  lamp  and  strewn  with 
numbers,  nutshells,  scraps  of  paper,  and  counters. 
Before  each  player  lie  two  cards  and  a  little  heap  of 
counters  with  which  to  cover  the  figures  on  the  cards. 
In  the  centre  of  the  table  gleams  a  little  white  dish 
containing  five-copeck  pieces,  and  near  the  dish  lie  a 
half-eaten  apple,  a  pair  of  scissors,  and  a  plate  into 
which  one  is  supposed  to  put  one's  nutshells.  The 
children  are  playing  for  money  and  the  stakes  are  five 
copecks.  The  agreement  is  that  if  any  one  cheats  he 
must  go  at  once.  The  players  are  alone  in  the  dining- 
room.  Nurse  is  down-stairs  in  the  kitchen  showing 
the  cook  how  to  cut  out  a  dress  and  the  oldest  brother, 
148 


CHILDREN  149 

Vasia,  a  schoolboy  in  the  fifth  class,  is  lying  on  the 
sofa  in  the  drawing-room  feeling  bored. 

The  children  are  playing  with  fervour;  it  is  Grisha's 
face  that  depicts  the  most  acute  feeling.  He  is  a  nine- 
year-old  boy  with  a  closely  shaved  head,  fat  cheeks, 
and  lips  as  full  as  a  negro's;  he  has  already  entered 
the  preparatory  class,  and  so  he  considers  himself  grown 
up  and  very  clever.  He  is  playing  solely  for  the  sake 
of  the  money;  if  it  weren't  for  the  copecks  in  the  lit- 
tle dish  he  would  have  been  asleep  long  ago.  His 
brown  eyes  rove  uneasily  and  jealously  over  the  cards 
of  his  opponents.  Terror  lest  he  should  lose,  enmity, 
and  the  financial  calculations  which  fill  his  shaved  head 
won't  let  him  sit  still  or  concentrate  his  thoughts,  and 
so  he  is  wriggling  as  if  he  were  sitting  on  pins  and 
needles.  When  he  wins  he  greedily  grabs  the  money 
and  immediately  thrusts  it  into  his  pocket.  His  sister 
Annie,  a  child  of  eight  with  a  pointed  chin  and  bright, 
clever  eyes,  is  also  terrified  lest  somebody  else  should 
win.  She  alternately  flushes  and  pales  and  keeps  a 
watchful  eye  on  the  players.  It  isn't  the  money  that 
interests  her;  her  pleasure  in  the  game  comes  from 
pride.  Sonia,  the  other  sister,  is  six.  Her  head  is 
covered  with  curls  and  her  cheeks  are  a  colour  that 
can  only  be  seen  on  the  faces  of  healthy  children, 
expensive  dolls,  and  on  candy  boxes.  She  is  playing 
loto  for  the  sake  of  the  process  involved  in  the  playing. 
Her  face  is  alive  with  emotion.  She  laughs  and  claps 
her  hands  no  matter  who  wins. 


150  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

Aliosha,  a  puffy,  spherical  little  person,  pants, 
snuffles,  and  makes  round  eyes  at  the  cards.  He  is 
neither  greedy  of  gain  nor  of  success.  They  can't 
drive  him  away  from  the  table,  they  can't  put  him  to 
bed,  and  that  is  all  there  is  to  it;  he  looks  phlegmatic, 
but  at  heart  he  is  a  little  wretch.  He  has  taken  his 
place  at  the  table  not  so  much  for  the  sake  of  the  loto 
as  for  the  sake  of  the  quarrels  that  are  inseparable 
from  the  game.  He  is  horribly  pleased  if  one  child 
hits  or  abuses  another.  He  only  knows  the  figure  one 
and  those  ending  in  zero,  so  Annie  is  covering  his  num- 
bers for  him. 

The  fifth  player,  Andrew,  the  cook's  son,  is  a  dark- 
faced,  sickly  boy.  He  wears  a  cotton  shirt  and  a 
copper  cross  hangs  round  his  neck.  He  is  standing 
quite  still,  dreamily  contemplating  the  cards,  and  is 
indifferent  to  his  own  success  and  that  of  the  others 
because  he  is  entirely  absorbed  in  the  mathematical 
side  of  the  game  and  in  its  simple  philosophy.  "It  is 
strange,"  he  is  thinking,  "how  many  different  numbers 
there  are  in  this  world;  how  is  it  they  don't  get  mixed 
up?" 

With  the  exception  of  Sonia  and  Aliosha,  the  play- 
ers take  turns  in  calling  out  the  numbers.  Because  the 
numbers  are  all  so  alike,  they  have,  with  practice, 
invented  the  funniest  expressions  and  nicknames  for 
them — seven  they  call  "the  poker";  eleven,  "little 
sticks";  ninety,  "grandpa,"  and  so  forth.  The  game 
is  moving  along  briskly. 


CHILDREN  151 

"Thirty-two!"  cries  Grisha  as  he  draws  the  yellow 
counters  one  by  one  from  the  paternal  hat.  "Seven- 
teen! A  poker!  Twenty-three — climb  a  tree!" 

Annie  notices  that  Andrew  has  missed  the  twenty- 
three.  At  any  other  time  she  would  have  pointed  this 
out  to  him,  but  now,  when  her  pride  is  lying  in  the 
little  dish  with  her  copeck,  she  rejoices  to  see  it. 

"Twenty-two!"  continues  Grisha.  "Grandpa! 
Nine!" 

"Oh,  a  cockroach!  a  cockroach!"  shrieks  Sonia, 
pointing  to  a  cockroach  which  is  running  across  the 
table. 

"Don't  kill  it!"  says  Aliosha  in  a  deep  voice.  "It 
may  have  babies!" 

Sonia  follows  the  cockroach  with  her  eyes,  thinking 
about  its  babies  and  wondering  what  little  cockroach 
children  can  possibly  look  like. 

"Forty-three!  One!"  continues  Grisha  in  agony  be- 
cause Annie  has  already  covered  two  lines.  "Six!" 

"Game!  I've  won  the  game!"  cries  Sonia  casting 
up  her  eyes  coquettishly  and  laughing. 

The  faces  of  the  players  fall. 

"We  must  make  sure  of  it!"  Grisha  says,  looking 
spitefully  at  her. 

As  the  biggest  and  cleverest,  Grisha  has  appro- 
priated the  right  to  be  umpire;  what  he  says  is 
final. 

They  spend  a  long  time  carefully  verifying  Sonia's 
card  and,  to  the  great  regret  of  all  her  opponents,  find 


152  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

that  she  has  not  been  cheating.  Another  game  com- 
mences. 

"I  saw  a  funny  thing  yesterday,"  Annie  remarks,  as 
if  to  herself.  "Philip  Philipovitch  turned  his  eyelids 
inside  out,  and  his  eyes  were  all  red  and  horrid,  just 
like  a  devil's." 

"I've  seen  that,  too,"  says  Grisha.  "Eight!  One  of 
the  boys  at  school  can  wiggle  his  ears.  Twenty- 
seven!" 

Andrew  lifts  his  eyes  to  Grisha's  face  and  says: 

"I  can  wiggle  my  ears." 

"Come  on,  wiggle  them!" 

Andrew  wiggles  his  eyes,  his  lips,  his  fingers,  and 
thinks  that  his  ears,  too,  are  in  motion.  There  is 
general  laughter. 

"That  Philip  Philipovitch  isn't  nice,"  sighs  Sonia. 
"He  came  into  the  nursery  yesterday,  and  I  was  only 
in  my  chemise.  I  was  so  ashamed!" 

"Game!"  shouts  Grisha  suddenly,  grabbing  the 
money  out  of  the  dish.  "Prove  it  if  you  want  to!" 

The  cook's  son  looks  up  and  turns  pale. 

"Then  I  can't  go  on  playing,"  he  says  in  a  low  voice. 

"Why?" 

"Because  my  money's  all  gone." 

"You  mayn't  play  without  money!"  Grisha  de- 
clares. 

As  a  last  resort  Andrew  searches  through  his  pockets 
once  more  and  finds  nothing  but  crumbs  and  the  gnawed 
stump  of  a  pencil.  The  corners  of  his  mouth  go  down 


CHILDREN  153 

and  he  begins  to  blink  painfully.  He  is  just  going  to 
cry. 

"I'll  let  you  have  the  money!"  exclaims  Sonia,  un- 
able to  endure  his  agonised  glances.  "Only  see  that 
you  give  it  back!" 

The  money  is  paid  in,  and  the  game  goes  on. 

"I  hear  ringing!"  says  Annie,  opening  her  eyes  wide. 

They  all  stop  playing  and  gaze  open-mouthed  at  the 
dark  window.  The  light  of  the  lamp  is  shining  among 
the  shadows  outside. 

"You  just  think  you  heard  it." 

"At  night  they  only  ring  bells  in  the  churchyard," 
says  Andrew. 

"Why  do  they  ring  them  there?" 

"To  keep  robbers  from  breaking  into  the  church. 
Robbers  are  afraid  of  bells." 

"Why  do  robbers  want  to  break  into  the  church?" 
asks  Sonia. 

"Why?     To  kill  the  watchman,  of  course!" 

A  minute  elapses  in  silence.  They  look  at  one  an- 
other, shudder,  and  continue  the  game. 

"He's  cheating!"  roars  Aliosha  suddenly,  for  no 
reason  at  all. 

"You  liar!  I  wasn't  cheating!"  Andrew  turns 
white,  makes  a  wry  face,  and  thumps  Aliosha  on 
the  head.  Aliosha  glares  wrathfully,  puts  one  knee 
on  the  table,  and — biff! — slaps  Andrew  on  the  cheek! 
Each  slaps  the  other  once  more,  and  then  they  begin 
to  bawl.  These  horrors  are  too  much  for  Sonia;  she, 


154  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

too,  bursts  into  tears,  and  the  dining-room  resounds 
with  discordant  wails. 

But  you  need  not  imagine  that  this  puts  an  end  to 
the  game.  Before  five  minutes  are  over  the  children 
are  laughing  again  and  babbling  as  peacefully  as  ever. 
Their  faces  are  wet  with  tears,  but  this  does  not  pre- 
vent them  from  smiling.  Aliosha  is  even  radiant — 
there  has  been  a  quarrel! 

Enter  into  the  dining-room  Vasia,  the  schoolboy, 
looking  sleepy  and  bored. 

"This  is  disgusting!"  he  thinks,  seeing  Grisha  fum- 
bling in  his  pocket,  in  which  the  coins  are  jingling. 
"The  idea  of  letting  the  children  have  money!  The 
idea  of  letting  them  gamble!  A  fine  education  this  is 
for  them,  I  swear!  It's  disgusting!" 

But  the  children  are  playing  with  such  relish  that 
he  begins  to  want  to  take  a  seat  beside  them  himself 
and  try  his  own  luck. 

"Wait  a  minute!     I'll  play,  too,"  he  exclaims. 

"Put  in  a  copeck!" 

"In  a  minute,"  he  says,  feeling  through  his  pockets. 
"I  haven't  any  copecks,  but  here's  a  rouble.  I'll  put 
in  a  rouble." 

"No,  no,  no;  put  in  a  copeck!" 

"You  sillies,  a  rouble  is  worth  more  than  a  copeck," 
the  boy  explains.  "Whoever  wins  can  give  me  the 
change." 

"No;  please  go  away." 

The  schoolboy  shrugs  his  shoulders  and  goes  into 


CHILDREN  155 

the  kitchen  to  get  some  change  from  the  servants.  It 
seems  there  is  none  to  be  had  there. 

"You  change  it  for  me,"  he  urges  Grisha,  coming 
back.  "I'll  pay  you  a  discount  on  it.  You  won't? 
Then  sell  me  ten  copecks  for  my  rouble." 

Grisha  eyes  Vasia  with  suspicion.  He  scents  a  plot 
or  foul  play  of  some  sort. 

"No,  I  won't,"  he  says,  clutching  his  pocket. 

Vasia  loses  his  temper  and  calls  the  players  idiots 
and  donkeys. 

"Vasia,  I'll  put  it  in  for  you,"  cries  Sonia.  "Sit 
down!" 

The  boy  takes  his  seat  and  lays  down  two  cards  be- 
fore him.  Annie  begins  calling  out  the  numbers. 

"I've  dropped  a  copeck!"  Grisha  suddenly  declares 
in  a  troubled  voice.  "Wait  a  minute!" 

The  children  take  down  the  lamp  and  crawl  under 
the  table  to  look  for  the  coin. 

They  seize  nutshells  and  trash  in  their  hands  and 
bump  their  heads  together,  but  the  copeck  is  not  to  be 
found.  They  renew  the  search  and  continue  it  until 
Vasia  snatches  the  lamp  out  of  Grisha's  hands  and  puts 
it  back  in  its  place.  Grisha  continues  to  search  in  the 
dark. 

But  now,  at  last,  the  copeck  is  found.  The  players 
take  their  seats  at  the  table  with  the  idea  of  resuming 
the  game. 

"Sonia  is  asleep!"  cries  Annie. 

With  her  curly  head  on  her  arms,  Sonia  is  wrapped 


156  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

in  slumber  as  peaceful  and  profound  as  if  she  had  gone 
to  sleep  an  hour  ago.  She  fell  asleep  suddenly  while 
the  others  were  looking  for  the  copeck. 

"Come  and  lie  down  on  mamma's  bed!"  says  Annie, 
leading  her  out  of  the  dining-room.  "Come!" 

The  whole  crowd  go  with  her,  and  some  five  minutes 
later  mamma's  bed  offers  a  remarkable  spectacle.  On 
it  sleeps  Sonia.  Aliosha  is  snoring  beside  her.  Lying 
with  their  heads  to  her  heels  sleep  Grisha  and  Annie. 
And  here,  too,  the  cook's  son,  Andrew,  has  found  room 
for  himself.  The  coins  lie  scattered  beside  them, 
powerless  until  the  beginning  of  a  new  game. 

Good  night! 


THE  TROUBLESOME  GUEST 

IN  a  low,  lopsided  hut  inhabited  by  the  forester, 
Artem,  sat  two  men.  One  of  them  was  Artem  him- 
self, a  short,  lean  peasant  with  a  senile,  wrinkled  face 
and  a  beard  growing  out  of  his  neck;  the  other  was  a 
passing  hunter,  a  tall  young  fellow  wearing  a  new  shirt 
and  large,  muddy  boots. 

In  the  dark  night  outside  the  windows  roared  the 
wind  with  which  nature  lashes  herself  before  a  thunder- 
storm. The  tempest  howled  fiercely  and  the  stooping 
trees  moaned  with  pain.  Flying  leaves  rattled  against 
the  sheet  of  paper  that  patched  a  broken  window-pane. 

"I'll  tell  you  what,  boy,"  hah*  whispered  Artem,  in 
a  hoarse,  squeaky  voice,  staring  at  the  hunter  with 
fixed  and  startled  eyes,  "  I  am  not  afraid  of  wolves  nor 
witches  nor  wild  animals,  but  I  am  afraid  of  men. 
You  can  guard  yourself  against  wild  animals  with  guns 
or  other  arms,  but  there  is  no  protection  against  a  bad 
man." 

"Of  course  not.  You  can  shoot  an  animal,  but  if 
you  shot  a  robber  you  would  have  to  answer  for  it 
by  going  to  Siberia." 

"I  have  been  a  forester  here  for  close  on  thirty 
years,  and  I  have  had  more  trouble  with  bad  men  than 
157 


158  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

I  can  begin  to  tell  you.  I  have  had  them  here  by  the 
score.  This  hut  being  in  a  clearing  and  the  road  pass- 
ing so  near  brings  the  wretches  this  way.  One  of  the 
ruffians  will  come  along  and,  without  troubling  to  take 
off  his  cap,  will  just  rush  up  and  order  me:  'Here,  give 
me  some  bread ! '  Where  can  I  get  bread  from?  What 
right  has  he  to  ask  for  it?  Am  I  a  millionaire  that  I 
should  feed  every  drunkard  that  passes  by?  But  his 
eyes  are  glistening  with  wickedness,  and  without  a 
moment's  hesitation  he  shouts  in  my  ear:  'Give  me 
some  bread ! '  Then  I  give  it  to  him.  I  wouldn't  want 
to  fight  the  heathen  brute.  Some  of  them  have 
shoulders  a  yard  wide  and  great  fists  as  big  as  your 
boot,  and  I — you  see  what  I  am!  You  could  knock 
me  down  with  your  little  finger.  Well,  I  give  him 
his  bread  and  he  gorges  himself  and  lies  all  over  the 
hut,  and  as  for  saying  a  word  of  thanks — not  he!  Then 
there  come  some  that  want  money;  then  it's  'Tell  me 
where  your  money  is!'  But  what  money  have  I  got? 
Where  should  I  get  money  from?" 

"Was  there  ever  a  forester  that  didn't  have  money?" 
laughed  the  hunter.  "You  get  your  wages  every 
month  and  sell  wood  on  the  sly,  too,  I'll  be  bound." 

Artem  stared  in  terror  at  the  hunter  and  wagged 
his  beard  as  a  magpie  wags  its  tail. 

"You  are  too  young  to  say  such  things  to  me,"  said 
he.  "  You  will  have  to  answer  for  those  words  before 
God.  Who  are  you?  Where  are  you  from?" 

"I  am  Nethed,  the  bailiff's  son,  from  Viasofka." 


THE  TROUBLESOME  GUEST  159 

"Yes,  out  larking  with  your  gun.  I  used  to  like  to 
go  larking  with  a  gun,  too,  when  I  was  younger.  Well, 
well — oh — oh!"  yawned  Artem.  "It's  a  great  mis- 
fortune, good  people  are  scarce  and  robbers  and  mur- 
derers too  plentiful  to  count." 

"You  speak  as  if  you  were  afraid  of  me." 

"What  an  idea!  Why  should  I  be  afraid  of  you? 
I  can  see;  I  can  understand.  You  didn't  burst  in; 
you  came  in  quietly  and  bowed  and  crossed  yourself 
like  an  honest  man.  I  know  what's  what.  I  don't 
mind  letting  you  have  bread.  I  am  a  widower.  I 
never  light  the  fire  in  the  stove,  and  I  have  sold  my 
samovar  and  am  too  poor  to  have  meat  and  such 
things,  but  bread — you  are  welcome  to  that!" 

At  that  moment  something  under  the  bench  growled 
and  the  growling  was  followed  by  hissing.  Artem 
jumped  and  drew  up  his  feet,  looking  inquiringly  at 
the  hunter. 

"That  is  my  dog  insulting  your  cat,"  said  the  hunter. 
"You  devils,  you,"  he  shouted  to  the  animals  under 
the  bench.  "Lie  down  or  you'll  get  a  whipping! 
Why,  uncle,  how  thin  your  cat  is!  Nothing  but  skin 
and  bones!" 

"She  is  getting  old;  it  is  time  she  was  killed.  So 
you  say  you  are  from  Viasofka?" 

"You  don't  give  her  anything  to  eat,  I  can  see  that. 
She  is  a  living  creature  even  if  she  is  a  cat.  It's  a 
shame!" 

"Viasofka  is  a  wicked  place,"  continued  Artem  as  if 


160  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

he  hadn't  heard  the  hunter.  "The  church  there  was 
robbed  twice  in  one  year.  Can  you  believe  that  there 
are  such  heathen?  They  not  only  don't  fear  man;  they 
don't  even  fear  God!  To  steal  God's  property!  To 
hang  for  that  is  too  little!  In  the  old  days  the  gov- 
ernors used  to  have  such  knaves  beheaded." 

"You  can  punish  them  as  you  like,  thrash  them,  or 
sentence  them  to  anything  you  please,  you'll  only  be 
wasting  your  time.  You  can't  knock  the  bad  out  of 
a  bad  man." 

"The  Holy  Virgin  have  mercy  on  us  and  save  us," 
sighed  the  forester  in  a  trembling  voice,  "save  us 
from  our  enemies  and  evil-wishers!  Last  week,  at 
Bolovich,  one  of  the  haymakers  struck  another  in  the 
chest  and  beat  him  to  death.  Thy  will  be  done,  O 
Lord!  How  do  you  think  it  began?  One  haymaker 
came  out  of  a  tavern  drunk  and  met  another,  also 
drunk " 

Hearkening  to  something  the  hunter  suddenly 
craned  his  neck  forward  and  strained  his  ears  to  catch 
some  sound. 

"Stop!"  he  interrupted  the  forester.  "I  thought  I 
heard  some  one  calling." 

The  hunter  and  the  forester  both  fixed  their  eyes 
on  the  dark  window  and  listened  attentively.  Above 
the  noise  of  the  trees  they  caught  the  sounds  that  strike 
an  attentive  ear  during  a  storm,  and  it  was  hard  to  dis- 
tinguish whether  some  one  was  really  calling  or  whether 
it  was  only  the  wind  sobbing  in  the  chimney.  But  now 


THE  TROUBLESOME  GUEST  161 

a  gust  that  tore  at  the  roof  and  rattled  the  paper  in  the 
window  brought  a  distinct  cry:  "Help!" 

"Talking  about  murderers,  here  they  are!"  cried 
the  hunter.  He  paled  and  got  up.  "  Some  one  is  being 
robbed." 

"The  Lord  preserve  us!"  whispered  the  forester, 
also  turning  pale  and  rising. 

The  hunter  looked  aimlessly  out  of  the  window  and 
strode  across  the  hut. 

"What  a  night,  what  a  night!"  he  muttered.  "As 
black  as  pitch  and  just  the  time  for  a  robbery.  Did 
you  hear  that?  Some  one  screamed  again." 

The  forester  looked  at  the  icon,  then  at  the  hunter, 
and  sank  feebly  onto  a  bench,  like  a  man  who  has  been 
shocked  by  sudden  news. 

"Oh,  son,"  he  wailed,  "go  into  the  hall  and  bolt  the 
outside  door!  And  the  light  ought  to  be  put  out!" 

"What  for?" 

"They  might  come  in  here.  Who  knows?  Oh,  we 
are  all  miserable  sinners!" 

"We  have  got  to  go  out,  and  you  want  to  bolt  the 
door!  Come,  shall  we  start?" 

The  hunter  threw  his  gun  across  his  shoulder  and 
seized  his  cap. 

"Put  on  your  coat!  Get  your  gun!  Here,  Flerka, 
here ! "  he  called  to  his  dog.  "Flerka ! " 

A  long-eared  dog,  a  cross  between  a  setter  and  a 
mastiff,  came  out  from  under  the  bench  and  lay  down 
at  his  master's  feet,  wagging  his  tail. 


162  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"Why  don't  you  get  up?"  cried  the  hunter  to  the 
forester.  "Aren't  you  coming?" 

"Where  to?" 

"To  help." 

"Why  should  I  go?"  The  forester  made  a  gesture 
of  indifference  and  huddled  himself  together.  "Let 
him  alone!" 

"Why  won't  you  come?" 

"After  those  blood-curdling  stories,  I  refuse  to  go 
one  step  into  the  darkness.  Let  him  alone!  I've  seen 
dreadful  things  happen  in  those  woods." 

"What  are  you  afraid  of?  Haven't  you  got  a  gun? 
Come  along;  it's  scary  work  going  alone;  it  will  be 
jollier  together.  Did  you  hear  that?  There's  that 
screaming  again!  Get  up!" 

"What  do  you  take  me  for,  boy?"  groaned  the  for- 
ester. "Do  you  think  I'm  going  out  there  like  a  fool, 
to  be  murdered?" 

"So  you  won't  go?" 

The  forester  was  silent.  The  dog,  probably  hear- 
ing the  human  cries,  began  to  bark  dismally. 

"Will  you  come,  I  say?"  shouted  the  hunter,  glaring 
angrily. 

"You  worry  me,"  the  forester  said,  frowning.  "Go 
yourself!" 

"You — you  dirty  beast!"  muttered  the  hunter,  turn- 
ing toward  the  door.  "Here,  Flerka!" 

He  went  out,  leaving  the  door  open.  The  wind 
swept  through  the  hut,  the  candle  flame  flickered, 
flared  brightly,  and  went  out. 


THE  TROUBLESOME  GUEST  163 

As  he  closed  the  door  after  the  hunter  the  forester 
saw  the  pools  of  water  in  the  clearing*  the  pines,  and 
the  retreating  form  of  his  guest  lit  up  by  a  flash  of 
lightning.  The  thunder  growled  in  the  distance. 

"Holy,  holy,  holy!"  he  whispered,  hurriedly  throwing 
the  heavy  bolt  into  place.  "What  weather  the  Lord 
has  sent  us!" 

Re-entering  the  room,  he  felt  his  way  to  the  stove, 
climbed  up,  and  covered  his  head.  Lying  under  his 
sheepskin  coat,  he  strained  his  ears  to  listen.  The 
screams  had  stopped,  but  now  the  thunder  was  roaring 
louder  and  louder,  clap  on  clap.  A  heavy,  driving  rain 
beat  fiercely  against  the  glass  and  the  paper  pane  of 
the  window. 

"What  a  storm!"  he  thought,  and  pictured  to  him- 
self the  hunter,  soaking  wet  and  stumbling  over  the 
stumps.  "His  teeth  must  be  chattering  with  fear!" 

Not  more  than  ten  minutes  had  elapsed  before  he 
heard  footsteps,  followed  by  loud  knocking  at  the  door. 

"Who  is  there?"  he  called. 

"It  is  I!"  answered  the  hunter's  voice.  "Open  the 
door!" 

The  forester  climbed  down  from  the  stove,  felt  for 
the  candle,  lit  it,  and  went  to  open  the  door.  The 
hunter  and  his  dog  were  drenched  to  the  skin.  They 
had  been  caught  in  the  fiercest  and  heaviest  of  the  rain 
and  were  streaming  like  wet  rags. 

"What  happened  out  there?"  asked  the  forester. 

"A  woman  in  a  wagon  had  got  off  the  road,"  an- 


164  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

swered  the  hunter,  trying  to  catch  his  breath,  "and 
had  fallen  into  a  ditch." 

"What  a  fool!  And  got  scared,  I  suppose.  Did 
you  put  her  back  on  the  road?" 

"I  refuse  to  answer  such  a  coward  as  you." 

The  hunter  threw  his  wet  cap  on  the  bench  and  con- 
tinued: "Now  I  know  that  you  are  a  coward  and  the 
scum  of  the  earth.  And  you  are  supposed  to  be  a 
watchman,  and  you  get  wages  for  it!  You  worthless 
trash,  you!" 

The  forester  crawled  guiltily  to  the  stove,  groaned, 
and  lay  down.  The  hunter  sat  down  on  the  bench, 
thought  an  instant,  and  then  threw  himself,  wet  as  he 
was,  full  length  along  it.  Next  moment  he  jumped  up 
again,  blew  out  the  candle,  and  again  lay  down.  Once, 
at  an  unusually  loud  thunderclap,  he  turned  over,  spat, 
and  muttered: 

"So  he  was  afraid — and  what  if  some  one  had  been 
murdering  the  woman?  Whose  business  was  it  to  go 
to  her  help?  And  he's  an  old  man,  too,  and  a  Chris- 
tian! He's  a  pig,  that's  what  he  is!" 

The  forester  grunted  and  heaved  a  deep  sigh.  Flerka 
shook  herself  violently  in  the  darkness  and  scattered 
drops  of  water  everywhere. 

"I  don't  suppose  you  would  have  cared  one  bit  if 
the  old  woman  had  been  murdered!"  continued  the 
hunter.  "  By  God,  I  didn't  know  you  were  a  man  like 
that!" 

Silence  fell.    The  storm  had  blown  over  and  the 


THE  TROUBLESOME  GUEST  165 

thunder  now  rumbled  in  the  distance,  but  it  was  still 
raining. 

"What  if  it  had  been  you  calling  for  help  and  not  a 
woman?"  the  hunter  burst  out.  "How  would  you 
have  liked  it,  you  beast,  if  no  one  had  run  to  your 
rescue?  You  drive  me  crazy  with  your  chicken-hearted 
ways,  damn  you ! " 

Then,  after  another  long  entr'acte,  the  hunter  said: 

"If  you  are  as  afraid  of  people  as  you  seem  to  be, 
you  must  have  money  somewhere.  A  poor  man  doesn't 
get  frightened  like  that." 

"You  will  answer  for  those  words  before  God," 
croaked  Artem  from  the  stove.  "I  haven't  a  penny." 

"Huh!  Nonsense!  Cowards  always  have  money. 
Why  are  you  so  afraid  of  people?  Of  course  you  have 
money.  I  believe  I'll  just  rob  you  on  purpose  to  teach 
you  a  lesson!" 

Artem  silently  slipped  down  from  the  stove,  lit  the 
candle,  and  sat  down  under  the  icon.  He  was  pale 
and  did  not  take  his  eyes  off  the  hunter. 

"Yes,  I  shall  certainly  rob  you,"  continued  the 
hunter.  "What  do  you  think?  Shouldn't  one  give 
one's  brother  a  lesson?  Tell  me  where  you  have  hid- 
den the  money!" 

Artem  drew  his  feet  up  under  him  and  blinked. 

"What  are  you  hugging  yourself  for?  Have  you 
lost  your  tongue,  you  clown?  Why  don't  you  answer?  " 

The  hunter  jumped  up  and  strode  toward  the  for- 
ester. 


166  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"There  he  sits  with  his  eyes  popping  out  of  his  head 
like  an  owl!  Well!  Give  me  the  money  or  I'll  shoot 
you  with  my  gun!" 

"Why  do  you  torment  me?"  whimpered  the  forester, 
and  great  tears  rolled  out  of  his  eyes.  "What  have  I 
done  to  you?  God  is  witness  to  everything.  You 
will  have  to  answer  for  your  words  before  God.  You 
have  no  right  to  ask  me  for  money." 

The  hunter  looked  at  Artem's  weeping  face,  frowned, 
marched  across  the  hut,  angrily  clapped  on  his  cap,  and 
seized  his  gun. 

"Bah!  You're  too  sickening  to  look  at!"  he  mut- 
tered between  his  teeth.  "I  can't  endure  the  sight 
of  you!  I  couldn't  sleep  here,  anyway!  Good-bye! 
Here,  Flerka!" 

The  door  slammed  and  the  troublesome  guest  went 
out  with  his  dog.  Artem  locked  the  door  behind  him; 
crossed  himself,  and  lay  down. 


NOT  WANTED 

IT  is  seven  o'clock  of  a  June  evening.  A  throng 
of  summer  residents,  just  alighted  from  the  train, 
is  crawling  along  the  road  that  leads  from  the  little 
station  of  Kilkovo.  They  are  mostly  the  fathers  of 
families  and  are  laden  with  hand-bags,  portfolios,  and 
feminine  bandboxes.  They  all  look  weary  and  hungry 
and  cross,  as  if  it  were  not  for  them  that  the  sun  was 
shining  and  the  grass  was  so  green. 

Crawling  there,  among  others,  is  Paul  Zaikin,  a 
member  of  the  circuit  court,  tall  and  round-shouldered, 
perspiring,  scarlet,  and  glum. 

"Do  you  come  out  into  the  country  every  day?" 
asks  another  summer  resident  in  carroty-red  trousers. 

"No,  not  every  day,"  rejoins  Zaikin  with  gloom. 
"My  wife  and  son  live  here  all  the  time,  but  I  only 
come  twice  a  week.  I  have  no  time  to  make  the  trip 
every  day,  and,  besides,  it's  too  costly." 

"You're  right  about  the  expense,"  sighs  he  of  the 
carroty  trousers.  "One  can't  go  to  the  station  on  foot 
in  the  city,  one  has  to  hire  a  cab;  then  the  ticket  costs 
forty-two  copecks;  and  then  one  buys  a  newspaper  to 
read  on  the  way  and  a  glass  of  vodka  to  keep  up  one's 
strength — all  these  are  trivial  expenses,  but  before  you 
167 


168  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

know  it  the  copecks  have  mounted  up  to  two  hundred 
roubles  by  the  end  of  the  summer.  Of  course  the  lap 
of  nature  is  worth  more  than  that,  and  the  idyls  and 
all — I  won't  attempt  to  deny  it — but,  with  our  salaries 
as  government  officials,  every  copeck  counts,  as  you 
know.  If  you  are  careless  enough  to  waste  a  copeck  it 
will  keep  you  awake  all  night.  Yes,  indeed.  I,  my 
dear  sir  (I  have  not  the  honour  of  knowing  your  name), 
get  a  salary  of  a  little  less  than  two  thousand  roubles 
a  year.  State  councilor  is  my  rank,  and  yet  I  only 
smoke  second-rate  tobacco  and  haven't  a  rouble  to 
spare  to  buy  myself  vichy  water  which  the  doctors 
prescribe  for  my  gravel." 

'It's  absolutely  atrocious,"  says  Zaikin  after  a  long 
pause.  "I,  sir,  am  convinced  that  suburban  life  was 
invented  by  devils  and  women;  the  devil  invented  it 
from  malice  and  the  women  from  unbounded  folly. 
Good  Lord!  This  isn't  life;  this  is  penal  servitude; 
this  is  hell.  It's  so  sweltering  and  hot  here  one  scarcely 
can  breathe,  and  yet  one  is  driven  from  one  place  to 
another  like  a  thing  accursed,  with  never  a  corner  to 
take  refuge  in.  And  in  town  you've  no  furniture  left 
and  no  servant;  everything  has  been  dragged  to  the 
country.  You  feed  Heaven  knows  how;  you  never  have 
tea  because  there  is  no  one  to  light  the  samovar;  you 
never  wash,  and  then  you  come  here,  into  the  lap  of 
nature,  and  have  to  tramp  through  the  dust,  on  foot, 
in  this  heat — bah!  Are  you  married?" 

"Yes;  I  have  three  children,"  sigh  the  red  trousers. 


NOT  WANTED  169 

"Atrocious!  It's  astonishing  to  me  that  we  are  still 
alive." 

At  last  the  two  men  reach  the  summer  colony. 
Zaikin  bids  farewell  to  the  red  trousers  and  goes  to  his 
own  house.  There  he  is  met  by  a  dead  silence.  He 
hears  only  the  buzzing  of  mosquitoes  and  the  supplica- 
tions for  help  of  a  fly  that  is  making  a  spider's  dinner. 
Muslin  curtains  hang  before  the  windows  and  behind 
these  gleam  faded  red  geranium  blossoms.  Flies  are 
dozing  on  the  unpainted  wooden  walls  among  the 
cheap  coloured  prints.  There  is  not  a  soul  in  the  hall, 
in  the  kitchen,  in  the  dining-room.  At  last,  in  the  room 
which  does  duty  as  living-room  and  drawing-room 
both,  Zaikin  discovers  his  son  Peter,  a  small  boy  of 
six.  Peter  is  sitting  at  the  table,  snuffling  loudly  and 
hanging  his  lower  lip,  and  with  a  pair  of  scissors  is 
cutting  the  knave  of  diamonds  out  of  a  card. 

"Oh,  is  that  you,  papa?"  he  asks  without  turning 
round.  "Good  evening!" 

"Good  evening!     Where  is  your  mother?" 

"Mamma?  Oh,  she  has  gone  with  Miss  Olga  to  a 
rehearsal.  They're  going  to  act  a  play  day  after  to- 
morrow. And  they're  going  to  take  me.  Are  you 
going?" 

"H'm.     And  when  is  she  coming  back?" 

"She  said  she  would  be  back  this  evening." 

"Where  is  Natalia?" 

"Mamma  took  Natalia  with  her  to  help  her  dress 
at  the  rehearsal,  and  Akulina  has  gone  to  the  woods  to 


170  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

get  mushrooms.  Papa,  why  do  mosquitoes'  stomachs 
get  red  when  they  bite?" 

"I  don't  know.  Because  they  suck  blood.  So  there 
is  no  one  at  home?" 

"No,  no  one  but  me." 

Zaikin  sinks  into  a  chair  and  for  a  minute  looks 
dully  out  of  the  window. 

"Who's  going  to  give  us  our  dinner?"  he  asks. 

"They  didn't  cook  any  dinner  to-day,  papa. 
Mamma  thought  you  wouldn't  come  home  to-day,  and 
so  she  said  for  them  not  to  cook  dinner.  She  and  Miss 
Olga  are  going  to  have  dinner  at  the  rehearsal." 

"How  delightful!    And  what  have  you  had  to  eat?" 

"I've  had  some  milk.  They  bought  some  milk  for 
me  for  six  copecks.  But,  papa,  why  do  mosquitoes 
suck  blood?" 

Zaikin  suddenly  feels  as  if  some  heavy  object  had 
rolled  down  on  his  liver  and  were  beginning  to  gnaw  it. 
He  feels  so  vexed  and  injured  and  bitter  that  he  trem- 
bles and  breathes  heavily  and  longs  to  leap  up,  bang 
on  the  floor  with  some  heavy  weight,  and  break  into 
recriminations.  But  he  remembers  that  the  doctor  has 
sternly  forbidden  him  excitement;  so  he  gets  up  and, 
making  a  great  effort  to  control  himself,  begins  whis- 
tling an  air  from  "The  Huguenots." 

He  hears  Peter's  voice:  "Papa,  can  you  act  plays?" 

Zaikin's  temper  is  going. 

"Oh,  leave  me  alone  with  your  stupid  questions!" 
he  cries.  "You  stick  like  a  wet  leaf.  You're  six  al- 


NOT  WANTED  171 

ready,  and  yet  you're  as  silly  as  you  were  three  years 
ago.  You're  a  stupid,  rowdy  boy.  What  do  you  mean 
by  destroying  those  cards,  for  instance?  How  dare 
you  destroy  them?" 

"They're  not  your  cards,"  says  Peter,  turning  round. 
"Natalia  gave  them  to  me." 

"That's  a  fib,  a  fib,  you  good-for-nothing  boy!" 
cries  Zaikin,  more  and  more  incensed.  "You're  always 
fibbing!  You  need  a  whipping,  you  little  puppy.  I'll 
pull  your  ears  for  you!" 

Peter  jumps  up,  thrusts  out  his  neck,  and  stares 
intently  at  his  father's  red,  angry  face.  His  large  eyes 
first  blink  and  then  are  clouded  with  moisture,  and  he 
screws  up  his  face. 

"What  are  you  scolding  me  for?"  wails  Peter. 
"Why  can't  you  let  me  alone,  donkey?  I  don't  bother 
any  one,  and  I'm  not  naughty,  and  I  do  as  I'm 
told,  and  you — you  get  angry!  Why  do  you  scold 
me?" 

The  boy  spoke  with  conviction  and  wept  so  bitterly 
that  Zaikin  grew  ashamed  of  himself. 

"Yes,  really,  what  am  I  trying  to  pick  a  quarrel 
with  him  for?"  he  reflects.  "Come,  that  will  do!"  he 
says,  touching  Peter's  shoulder.  "I'm  sorry,  Peterkin; 
forgive  me!  You're  a  good  little  boy,  a  nice  little 
boy,  and  I  love  you." 

Peter  wipes  his  eyes  on  his  sleeve,  resumes  his 
former  seat  with  a  sigh,  and  starts  cutting  out  a  queen. 
Zaikin  goes  into  his  study,  stretches  himself  out  on  the 


172  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

sofa,  and  begins  to  muse  with  his  hands  behind  his 
head. 

The  boy's  recent  tears  have  softened  his  anger,  and 
his  liver  is,  little  by  little,  beginning  to  feel  easier.  He 
now  only  feels  hungry  and  tired. 

"Papa!"  he  hears  on  the  other  side  of  the  door. 
"Shall  I  show  you  my  collection  of  insects?" 

"Yes,  show  it  to  me." 

Peter  comes  into  the  study  and  hands  his  father  a 
long  green  box.  Even  before  raising  it  to  his  ear 
Zaikin  hears  a  despairing  buzzing  and  the  scratching 
of  tiny  feet  on  the  sides  of  the  box.  As  he  lifts  the 
cover  he  sees  a  great  number  of  butterflies,  beetles, 
grasshoppers,  and  flies  fixed  by  pins  to  the  bottom  of 
the  box.  All,  with  the  exception  of  two  or  three  but- 
terflies, are  alive  and  wriggling. 

"And  that  little  grasshopper  is  still  alive!"  exclaims 
Peter,  astonished.  "We  caught  him  yesterday  morn- 
ing, and  he  isn't  dead  yet!" 

"Who  taught  you  to  stick  them  down  like  that?" 

"Miss  Olga." 

"Miss  Olga  ought  to  be  stuck  down  herself,"  says 
Zaikin  with  disgust.  "Take  them  away!  It's  shame- 
ful to  torture  animals." 

"Heavens!  How  atrociously  he  is  being  brought 
up!"  he  thinks  as  Peter  departs. 

Zaikin  has  forgotten  his  hunger  and  fatigue  and  is 
thinking  only  of  the  fate  of  his  boy.  The  daylight  has 
gradually  faded  outside  the  windows;  the  summer 


NOT  WANTED  173 

residents  can  be  heard  coming  home  in  little  groups 
from  their  evening  bath.  Some  one  takes  up  his  stand 
below  the  open  window  and  cries:  "Mushrooms! 
Who  wants  mushrooms?"  Receiving  no  answer,  he 
shuffles  on  farther  with  his  bare  feet.  And  now,  when 
the  twilight  has  deepened  so  that  the  geraniums  have 
lost  their  outlines  behind  the  muslin  curtains  and  the 
freshness  of  evening  has  begun  to  draw  in  at  the  win- 
dow, the  door  into  the  hall  opens  noisily  and  sounds  of 
rapid  footsteps,  laughter,  and  talk  can  be  heard. 

"Mamma!"  shrieks  Peter. 

Zaikin  peeps  out  of  the  study  and  sees  his  wife 
Nadejda,  buxom  and  rosy  as  ever.  Miss  Olga  is  with 
her,  a  bony  blonde  with  large  freckles,  and  two  un- 
known men:  one  young  and  lank,  with  curly  red  hair 
and  a  large  Adam's  apple;  the  other  short  and  dumpy, 
with  an  actor's  clean-shaven  face  and  a  crooked,  blue 
chin. 

"Natalia,  light  the  samovar!"  cries  the  wife,  her 
dress  rustling  noisily.  "I  hear  that  the  master  has 
come  home!  Paul,  where  are  you?  Good  evening, 
Paul!"  she  says,  and  runs  panting  into  the  study.  "So 
you've  come?  I'm  so  glad!  Two  of  our  amateurs 
have  come  home  with  me;  come,  I'll  introduce  you 
to  them!  There,  the  tallest  one,  yonder,  is  Koromis- 
loff;  he  sings  divinely;  the  other,  the  little  one,  is  a 
certain  Smerkaloff;  he's  an  actor  by  profession  and 
recites  most  wonderfully!  Whew!  I'm  so  tired!  We 
have  just  had  a  rehearsal.  Everything's  going  finely. 


174  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

We  are  giving  'The  Lodger  with  the  Trombone'  and 
'  She  Expects  Him.'  The  performance  will  be  day  after 
to-morrow " 

"Why  did  you  bring  them  here?" 

"I  simply  had  to,  dear.  We  must  go  through  our 
roles  once  more  after  tea  and  sing  a  song,  too.  Koro- 
misloff  and  I  are  singing  a  duet  together.  Oh,  I  nearly 
forgot!  Dearie,  do  send  Natalia  for  some  sardines 
and  vodka  and  cheese  and  things — they  will  probably 
stay  to  supper,  too.  Oh,  how  tired  I  am.'" 

"H'm.     I  haven't  any  money!" 

"Oh,  really,  dear,  how  can  you?  How  awkward! 
Don't  make  it  embarrassing  for  me!" 

In  half  an  hour  Natalia  has  been  sent  for  vodka  and 
other  delicacies,  and  Zaikin,  having  drunk  his  fill  of 
tea  and  eaten  a  whole  loaf  of  French  bread,  has  retired 
to  his  bedroom  and  lain  down  on  the  bed,  while  Nadejda 
and  her  guests,  with  laughter  and  noise,  have  once  more 
fallen  to  rehearsing  their  roles.  Paul  listens  for  a  long 
time  to  the  hideous  recitations  of  Koromisloff  and  the 
theatrical  shouts  of  Smerkaloff.  The  recitations  are 
followed  by  a  long  conversation,  which  is  rent  by  the 
shrieking  laughter  of  Miss  Olga.  Smerkaloff,  by  right 
of  being  a  real  actor,  is  explaining  their  roles  to  them 
with  heat  and  assurance. 

Next  follows  a  duet,  and  after  the  duet  comes  the 
clattering  of  dishes.  In  his  dreams  Zaikin  hears  Smer- 
kaloff reciting  "The  Sinner,"  hears  him  beginning  to 
rant  as  he  struts  before  his  audience.  He  hisses,  he 


NOT  WANTED  175 

beats  his  breast,  he  weeps,  he  guffaws  in  a  hoarse  bass 
voice. 

Zaikin  groans  and  buries  his  head  under  the  blanket. 

"You  have  a  long  way  to  go,  and  it's  dark,"  he  hears 
his  wife's  voice  saying  an  hour  later.  "  Why  don't  you 
spend  the  night  with  us?  Koromisloff  can  sleep  here  in 
the  drawing-room  on  the  sofa,  and  you,  Smerkaloff,  can 
have  Peter's  bed.  Peter  can  go  in  my  husband's  study. 
Do  stay!" 

As  the  clock  strikes  two  silence  falls  at  last.  Then 
the  bedroom  door  opens,  and  Nadejda  appears. 

"Paul,  are  you  asleep?"  she  whispers. 

"No,  what  do  you  want?" 

"Darling,  go  to  your  study  and  lie  down  on  the  sofa 
there,  I  want  to  put  Miss  Olga  into  your  bed.  Go,  dear ! 
I  would  put  her  in  the  study,  but  she  is  afraid  to  sleep 
alone.  Do  get  up!" 

Zaikin  gets  up,  throws  a  dressing-gown  over  his 
shoulders,  seizes  a  pillow,  and  crawls  into  the  study. 
Feeling  his  way  to  the  sofa,  he  strikes  a  match  and 
sees  Peter  lying  on  it !  The  boy  is  awake  and  is  gazing 
with  wide  eyes  at  the  flame. 

"Papa,  why  don't  mosquitoes  go  to  sleep  at  night?" 
he  inquires . 

"Because — because,"  mutters  Zaikin,  "because  you 
and  I  are  not  wanted  here.  We  haven't  even  a  place  to 
sleep ! " 

"Papa,  why  does  Miss  Olga  have  freckles  on  her 
face?" 


176  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"Oh,  shut  up!    I'm  tired  of  you!" 

After  a  few  moments'  reflection  Zaikin  dresses  and 
steps  out  into  the  road  to  get  some  fresh  air.  He  looks 
up  at  the  grey  morning  sky,  the  motionless  clouds,  hears 
the  lazy  cry  of  a  sleepy  rail,  and  muses  on  the  morrow, 
when,  in  town  once  more,  he  will  return  after  the  day's 
business  and  throw  himself  down  to  sleep.  All  at 
once  there  appears  from  round  the  corner  the  form  of  a 
man. 

"The  watchman,  no  doubt,"  thinks  Zaikin. 

But  as  they  catch  sight  of  one  another  and  approach 
more  closely  he  recognises  yesterday's  acquaintance  of 
the  carroty-red  trousers. 

"What,  not  asleep?"  he  asks. 

"No,  I  somehow  can't  sleep,"  sigh  the  red  trousers. 
"I  am  enjoying  nature.  A  beloved  guest  came  to 
stay  with  us,  you  know,  on  the  night  train — my  wife's 
mamma.  My  nieces  came  with  her;  such  fine  little 
girls!  I  am  delighted,  although — it  is  rather  damp. 
And  you,  too,  are  enjoying  nature?" 

"Yes,"  bellows  Zaikin,  "I,  too,  am  enjoying —  I 
say,  don't  you  know  some— isn't  there  any  bar  or  some- 
thing of  the  sort  near  here?" 

The  red  trousers  raise  their  eyes  to  heaven  in  pro- 
found meditation. 


THE  ROBBEES 

ERGUNOFF,  the  doctor's  assistant,  was  a  man  of 
frivolous  character  who  had  the  reputation  in 
the  district  of  a  windbag  and  a  great  drinker.  One 
evening  before  Christmas  he  was  returning  from  the 
hamlet  of  Repin  with  some  purchases  for  the  hospital. 
To  bring  him  back  more  quickly,  the  doctor  had  lent 
him  his  very  best  horse. 

At  first  the  weather  was  fair,  but  toward  eight 
o'clock  a  violent  snow-storm  sprang  up  and,  with  some 
seven  versts  more  to  go,  Ergunoff  completely  lost  his 
way. 

He  did  not  know  which  way  to  guide  the  horse,  as 
the  road  was  strange,  so  he  went  on  at  random  wher- 
ever his  fancy  led  him,  hoping  that  the  horse  would 
find  the  way  home.  Two  hours  passed;  the  horse 
was  exhausted  and  he  himself  was  freezing.  He  im- 
agined he  was  going  back  to  Repin  instead  of  toward 
home,  when  he  suddenly  heard  the  faint  barking  of  a 
dog  above  the  noise  of  the  storm  and  saw  a  dim  red 
light  ahead.  A  high  gate  and  a  long  wooden  fence 
surmounted  by  a  bristling  row  of  spikes  gradually  ap- 
peared; behind  them  rose  the  crooked  windlass  of  a 
well.  The  wind  swept  aside  the  clouds  of  snow  and  a 
177 


178  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

squat  little  cottage  with  a  high  roof  took  shape  around 
the  ruddy  light.  Of  its  three  windows,  one  had  a  red 
curtain  hanging  before  it  and  behind  this  a  light  was 
burning. 

What  was  this  dwelling?  The  doctor  remembered 
that  there  was  said  to  be  an  inn,  formerly  owned  by 
Andrew  Tchirikoff,  lying  to  the  right  of  the  road  some 
six  or  seven  versts  from  the  hospital.  He  remembered, 
too,  that  Tchirikoff  had  been  murdered  by  carriers  not 
long  since,  leaving  behind  him  an  old  wife  and  a 
daughter,  Liubka,  who  had  come  to  the  hospital  for 
medicine  two  years  ago.  The  house  had  an  evil  rep- 
utation, and  to  come  there  late  in  the  evening,  and  with 
somebody  else's  horse,  too,  was  not  unfraught  with 
danger. 

But  there  was  nothing  else  to  be  done  now;  the 
doctor  felt  for  the  revolver  in  his  saddle-bag,  coughed 
sternly,  and  knocked  on  the  window  with  his  whip. 

"Hey!  Is  any  one  there?"  he  shouted.  "Let  me  in 
to  warm  myself,  good  woman!" 

With  a  hoarse  bark  a  black  dog  whirled  out  under 
the  feet  of  his  horse,  then  came  a  white  one,  then 
another  black  one — a  whole  dozen  of  them.  The  doc- 
tor picked  out  the  biggest,  brandished  his  whip,  and 
brought  it  down  with  all  his  might  across  the  dog's 
back.  The  little,  long-legged  cur  threw  up  its  sharp 
muzzle  and  gave  a  thin,  piercing  howl. 

The  doctor  stood  and  knocked  a  long  time  at  the 
window.  At  last  a  light  glowed  on  the  frosted  trees 


THE  ROBBERS  179 

near  the  house,  the  gate  creaked,  and  the  muffled  form 
of  a  woman  appeared  with  a  lantern  in  her  hand. 

"Let  me  in  to  warm  myself,  granny!"  cried  the 
doctor.  "I  am  on  my  way  to  the  hospital  and  have 
lost  the  road.  This  weather  is  frightful.  Don't  be 
afraid;  I  am  a  friend." 

"Our  friends  are  all  inside  and  we  don't  want  any 
strangers,"  answered  the  form  roughly.  "Why  do 
you  knock  when  you  don't  have  to?  The  gate  isn't 
locked." 

The  doctor  entered  the  yard  and  stopped  on  the 
threshold  of  the  house. 

"Tell  some  one  to  look  after  my  horse,  old  woman," 
he  said. 

"I  am  not  an  old  woman,"  said  the  figure,  and,  in- 
deed, this  was  so.  Her  face  was  lit  for  an  instant  as 
she  blew  out  the  lantern,  and  the  doctor  saw  her  black 
eyes  and  recognised  Liubka. 

"I  can't  get  a  man  now,"  she  said  as  she  went  into 
the  house.  "Some  are  drunk  and  asleep  and  the  oth- 
ers have  been  away  in  Repin  since  morning.  This  is 
a  holiday." 

While  tying  his  horse  in  the  shed,  Ergunoff  heard 
whinnying  and  made  out  another  horse  in  the  dark- 
ness. He  put  out  his  hand  and  felt  a  Cossack  saddle. 
This  meant  that  there  was  some  one  besides  the  two 
women  in  the  house.  In  any  case,  the  doctor  unsad- 
dled his  horse  and  took  his  saddle  and  purchases  in 
with  him. 


180  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

The  first  room  he  entered  was  almost  empty.  The 
air  was  hot  and  smelled  of  freshly  scrubbed  boards.  At 
a  table  under  the  icons  sat  a  small,  thin  peasant  of 
forty  with  a  little  red  beard  and  wearing  a  blue  shirt. 
It  was  Kalashnikoff,  a  notorious  ruffian  and  horse 
thief,  whose  father  and  uncle  kept  a  tavern  at  Bogo- 
lofka  where  they  carried  on  a  trade  in  stolen  horses. 
He  had  been  to  the  hospital  more  than  once,  not  for 
medicine  but  to  talk  about  horses  with  the  doctor. 
Hadn't  his  honour  the  doctor  a  horse  for  sale?  And 
wouldn't  he  trade  the  brown  mare  for  the  dun  gelding? 
To-night  he  had  plastered  his  hair  with  pomade  and 
silver  earrings  shone  in  his  ears — he  was  in  holiday 
garb.  Frowning,  his  lower  lip  hanging,  he  was  atten- 
tively studying  a  large,  untidy  picture-book.  Stretched 
on  the  floor  by  the  stove  lay  another  peasant;  his 
face,  shoulders,  and  chest  were  covered  with  a  fur 
coat;  he  seemed  to  be  asleep.  Two  pools  of  melted 
snow  lay  at  his  feet  which  were  shod  in  new  boots  with 
shining  steel  under  the  heels. 

Kalashnikoff  greeted  the  doctor  as  he  caught  sight 
of  him. 

"What  awful  weather!"  answered  Ergunoff,  rubbing 
his  cold  knees  with  his  hands.  "The  snow  has  gone 
down  my  neck,  and  I  am  wet  through,  and  I  think  my 
revolver — 

He  took  out  his  revolver,  looked  at  it  from  all  sides, 
and  put  it  back  in  the  saddle-bag;  but  it  did  not  make 
the  slightest  impression;  the  peasant  went  on  looking 
at  his  book. 


THE  ROBBERS  181 

"Yes,  this  is  awful  weather.  I  lost  my  way,  and  if 
it  had  not  been  for  the  dogs  here  I  should  have  been 
frozen  to  death.  Where  are  the  keepers  of  the  inn?" 

"The  old  woman  has  gone  to  Repin.  The  girl  is 
getting  supper,"  answered  Kalashnikoff. 

Silence  fell.  The  doctor,  all  huddled  up,  shivered 
and  grunted,  blew  on  his  hands,  and  pretended  to  be 
dreadfully  frozen  and  miserable.  The  excited  dogs 
still  howled  in  the  yard.  The  silence  grew  wearisome. 

"You  come  from  Bogolofka,  don't  you?"  asked  the 
doctor  severely. 

"Yes,  from  Bogolofka,"  answered  the  peasant. 

Because  he  had  nothing  better  to  do,  the  doctor 
began  to  think  about  Bogolofka.  It  is  a  large  village 
lying  in  a  deep  ravine,  and  to  any  one  travelling  along 
the  highroad  at  night,  looking  down  into  the  dark 
gorge  and  then  up  at  the  sky,  it  seems  as  if  the  moon 
were  hanging  over  a  bottomless  abyss  and  as  if  this 
were  the  jumping-off  place  of  the  earth.  The  road 
leading  down  is  so  steep,  so  winding  and  narrow,  that 
when  he  was  called  to  Bogolofka  during  an  epidemic, 
or  to  vaccinate  the  people  for  smallpox^  the  doctor 
would  have  to  whistle  and  shout  with  all  his  might  the 
whole  way  down,  for  to  pass  a  wagon  on  that  road  was 
impossible. 

The  peasants  of  Bogolofka  enjoy  a  great  reputation 
as  gardeners  and  horse  thieves;  their  orchards  are 
magnificent,  and  in  the  springtime  the  whole  village  is 
sunk  in  a  sea  of  white  cherry  blossoms.  In  summer  a 


182  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

bucketful  of  cherries  can  be  had  for  three  copecks — 
you  just  pay  your  money  and  help  yourself.  The  men 
and  women  are  handsome  and  prosperous.  They  love 
finery  and  do  nothing,  not  even  on  working  days,  but 
sit  on  their  beds  and  clean  one  another's  heads. 

But  now,  at  last,  footsteps  were  heard  and  Liubka 
came  in.  She  was  a  young  girl  of  twenty,  barefoot  and 
in  a  red  dress.  She  cast  a  sidelong  glance  at  the  doctor 
and  crossed  the  room  twice  from  corner  to  corner,  not 
walking  simply  but  mincing  and  throwing  out  her  chest; 
it  was  obvious  that  she  liked  to  shuffle  her  bare  feet  on 
the  freshly  scrubbed  boards  and  had  taken  off  her  shoes 
and  stockings  on  purpose  to  do  it. 

Kalashnikoff  burst  out  laughing  and  beckoned  her  to 
him;  she  went  to  the  table  and  he  pointed  to  a  picture 
of  the  prophet  Elijah  driving  a  span  of  three  horses  to 
heaven.  Liubka  rested  her  elbows  on  the  table  and 
her  long,  red-brown  braid,  tied  at  the  end  with  a  bit  of 
red  ribbon,  fell  across  her  shoulder  and  hung  almost  to 
the  floor.  She,  too,  laughed. 

"What  a  perfectly  beautiful  picture!"  exclaimed 
Kalashnikoff.  "Beautiful!"  he  repeated,  and  made  a 
motion  as  if  he  wanted  to  take  the  reins  into  his  own 
hands. 

The  wind  rumbled  in  the  stove;  something  growled 
and  squealed  there  as  if  a  large  dog  were  killing  a  rat. 

"The  evil  ones  are  going  by!"  said  Liubka. 

"That  was  the  wind,"  said  Kalashnikoff.  He  was 
silent  for  a  while  and  then  raised  his  eyes  to  the  doc- 


THE  ROBBERS  183 

tor's  face  and  asked:  "According  to  you,  sir,  accord- 
ing to  the  ideas  of  educated  people,  are  there  any 
devils  in  the  world  or  not?" 

"What  shall  I  say,  old  man?"  answered  the  doc- 
tor, shrugging  one  shoulder.  "Of  course,  scientifically 
speaking,  devils  don't  exist  because  they  are  only  a 
superstition,  but,  talking  it  over  simply,  as  you  and  I 
are  doing,  I  should  say  that  they  did.  I  have  been 
through  a  great  deal  in  my  life.  After  finishing  school 
I  decided  to  be  a  doctor  in  a  dragoon  regiment,  and  of 
course  I  went  to  the  war  and  have  received  the. Red 
Cross  medal.  After  the  peace  of  San  Stefano  I  came 
back  to  Russia  and  entered  the  civil  service.  I  can 
truthfully  say  that  I  have  seen  more  marvels  in  my 
roving  life  than  most  people  have  seen  in  their  dreams, 
and  so,  of  course,  I  have  met  devils  too,  not  devils  "with 
horns  and  tails — they  are  all  nonsense — but  devils 
something  on  that  order " 

"Where?"  asked  Kalashnikoff. 

"In  various  places.  Though  it  shouldn't  be  men- 
tioned at  night,  I  met  one  right  here  once,  near  this 
very  house.  I  was  on  my  way  to  Golishino  to  do  some 
vaccinating,  driving  along  in  a  racing  cart.  I  had  my 
instruments  with  me,  and  my  watch  and  so  forth,  and 
then  the  horse  and  all — well,  I  was  hurrying  along  at 
a  smart  pace;  you  never  can  tell  what  might  happen 
with  so  many  tramps  about.  I  had  got  as  far  as  that 
confounded  Snaky  Hollow  and  had  started  going  down 
when  I  suddenly  saw  some  one  coming  toward  me. 


184  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

His  hair  and  eyes  were  black  and  his  whole  face  was 
black  as  soot.  He  went  straight  up  to  my  horse,  took 
hold  of  the  left  rein,  and  ordered  me  to  stop.  He 
looked  at  the  horse  and  then  at  me,  and  then  threw 
down  the  rein  and,  without  any  suspicious  words, 
said:  'Where  are  you  going?'  But  he  was  grinning 
and  his  eyes  looked  wicked.  'You're  a  sly  bird!'  I 
thought,  and  answered,  'I  am  going  to  do  some  vac- 
cinating. What  business  is  it  of  yours?'  'If  that's  so,' 
said  he,  'you  can  vaccinate  me,'  and  with  that  he  bared 
his  arm  and  thrust  it  under  my  nose.  Of  course  I 
didn't  argue  with  him.  I  just  vaccinated  him  then  and 
there  to  get  rid  of  him.  When  I  looked  at  my  lancet 
afterward  it  was  all  rusty." 

The  peasant  who  had  been  lying  asleep  by  the  stove 
suddenly  turned  over  and  threw  off  his  coat,  and,  to  his 
great  surprise,  the  doctor  recognised  the  stranger  whom 
he  had  encountered  in  Snaky  Hollow.  The  man's 
hair,  eyebrows,  and  eyes  were  black  as  coal,  his  face 
was  swarthy,  and  in  addition  he  had  a  black  spot  the 
size  of  a  lentil  on  his  right  cheek.  He  looked  mockingly 
at  the  doctor  and  said: 

"I  took  hold  of  the  left  rein,  that  is  true,  but  you 
are  raving  about  the  vaccination,  mister.  We  never 
even  mentioned  smallpox." 

The  doctor  was  embarrassed.  "I  wasn't  talking 
about  you,"  he  said.  "Lie  down,  since  that's  what 
you  were  doing." 

The  dark  peasant  had  never  been  to  the  hospital,  and 


THE  ROBBERS  185 

the  doctor  did  not  know  who  he  was  nor  where  he  came 
from,  but  now,  observing  him,  he  decided  that  he  must 
be  a  gipsy.  The  man  got  up,  yawned  loudly,  and, 
sitting  down  beside  Liubka  and  Kalashnikoff  at  the 
table,  began  looking  at  the  pictures.  Jealousy  and 
emotion  were  depicted  on  his  sleepy  face. 

"There,  Merik!"  Liubka  said  to  him.  "If  you'll 
bring  me  some  horses  like  those  I'll  go  to  heaven!" 

"Sinners  can't  go  to  heaven,"  said  Kalashnikoff. 
"Heaven  is  for  the  saints." 

Liubka  got  up  and  began  to  lay  the  table.  She 
fetched  a  great  chunk  of  hog's  fat,  some  salted  cucum- 
bers, a  wooden  plate  of  boiled  beef,  and  finally  a  pan  in 
which  a  sausage  and  cabbage  were  frying.  There  also 
appeared  on  the  table  a  glass  decanter  of  vodka  which, 
when  it  was  poured  out,  filled  the  room  with  the  scent 
of  orange-peel. 

The  doctor  felt  angry  with  Kalashnikoff  and  the  dark 
Merik  for  talking  together  all  the  time  without  taking 
any  more  notice  of  him  than  if  he  had  not  been  in  the 
room.  He  wanted  to  talk  and  brag  and  drink  and  eat 
his  fill,  and  if  possible  to  romp  with  Liubka,  who  had 
sat  down  beside  him  and  got  up  five  times  during  supper 
and,  with  her  hands  on  her  broad  hips,  nudged  him  as 
if  accidentally  with  her  handsome  shoulders.  She  was 
a  lusty,  merry  wench,  boisterous,  and  never  still  for  an 
instant.  She  was  continually  sitting  down  and  then 
jumping  up  again,  and  when  she  sat  down  beside  you 
would  turn  first  her  breast  and  then  her  back  toward 


186  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

you,  like  a  naughty  child,  invariably  jostling  you  with 
her  elbow  or  knee. 

The  doctor  didn't  like  it,  either,  that  the  peasants 
drank  only  one  glass  of  vodka  apiece  and  then  stopped. 
It  was  awkward  to  drink  alone,  but  at  last  he  could 
resist  it  no  longer  and  took  a  second  glass,  then  a 
third,  and  then  ate  the  whole  sausage.  He  decided  to 
flatter  the  peasants  so  that  they  would  stop  holding 
him  at  a  distance  and  take  him  into  their  company. 

"You  are  great  fellows  at  Bogolofka,"  he  said,  wag- 
ging his  head. 

"How  do  you  mean?"  asked  Kalashnikoff. 

"Well,  about  horses;   you  are  experts  at  stealing." 

"That  was  in  the  old  days,"  said  Merik  after  a 
pause.  "Not  one  of  the  old  crowd  is  left  now  but 
Filia,  and  his  hair  is  grey." 

"Yes,  only  old  Filia,"  sighed  Kalashnikoff.  "He 
must  be  seventy  now.  The  German  immigrants  put 
out  one  of  his  eyes  and  he  is  almost  blind  in  the  other. 
He  has  a  cataract.  Whenever  the  police  saw  him  in 
the  old  days  they  used  to  call  out,  'Hello,  Shamil!'  * 
and  all  the  peasants  called  him  Shamil,  too,  but  now 
it's  only  'One-eyed  Filia.'  What  a  great  chap  he  used 
to  be!  He  and  Andrew  Grigoritch  and  I  met  one 
night  near  Rogovna,  where  a  regiment  of  cavalry  was 
encamped,  and  drove  away  ten  of  the  best  horses  in 
the  regiment,  and  the  sentries  never  suspected  a  thing. 
Next  morning  we  sold  the  whole  bunch  to  Afonka,  the 
*  A  famous  Circassian  chieftain. 


THE  ROBBERS  187 

gipsy,  for  twenty  roubles.  Yes,  sir!  But  thieves  these 
days  don't  rob  a  man  unless  he's  either  drunk  or  asleep, 
and  without  fear  of  God  will  even  pull  off  his  boots  if 
he's  drunk;  and  then  they  go  ten  versts  with  the  horse, 
scared  to  death  all  the  tune,  and  haggle  with  the  Jews 
at  the  bazaar  till  the  police  nab  them,  the  fools!  That 
kind  of  thing  isn't  a  spree,  it's  a  mess!  They're  a  rot- 
ten lot,  and  that's  the  truth." 

"What  about  Merik?"  asked  Liubka. 

"Merik  isn't  one  of  us,"  Kalashnikoff  answered. 
"He  comes  from  Kharkoff.  He's  a  fine  fellow,  there's 
no  doubt  about  that;  he's  all  right,  is  Merik." 

Liubka  glanced  slyly  and  gaily  at  Merik  and  said: 

"It  wasn't  for  nothing  they  dipped  him  in  the  ice 
hole!" 

"How  was  that?"  asked  the  doctor. 

"This  way,"  answered  Merik  with  a  grin.  "Filia 
once  stole  three  horses  belonging  to  the  Samoiloff 
tenants,  and  their  suspicions  fell  on  me.  There  were 
ten  tenants  on  the  place — thirty  men  in  all,  counting 
the  workmen — all  big,  husky  fellows.  Well,  one  of 
them  comes  up  to  me  at  the  bazaar  one  day  and  says: 
'Come  on,  Merik,  and  see  the  new  horses  we've  brought 
from  the  fair!'  I  want  to  see  them,  of  course,  so  off  I 
go  to  where  the  fellows  are,  all  thirty  of  them.  They 
grabbed  me  and  tied  my  hands  behind  my  back,  and 
led  me  down  to  the  river.  One  hole  in  the  ice  had  al- 
ready been  made;  they  cut  another  about  ten  feet 
away.  'Come  on!'  they  said.  'We'll  show  you  the 


188  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

horses.'  Then  they  made  a  noose  out  of  rope  and 
fastened  it  under  my  arms,  tied  a  crooked  pole  to  the 
other  end,  long  enough  to  reach  from  hole  to  hole, 
pushed  it  into  the  water,  and  pulled.  Down  I  went 
— splash ! — just  as  I  was,  fur  coat,  boots,  and  all.  They 
stood  and  prodded  me  and  kicked  me,  and  finally 
dragged  me  under  the  ice  and  out  through  the  other 
hole." 

Liubka  shivered  and  shrank  together. 

"At  first  the  cold  threw  me  into  a  glow,"  Merik  con- 
tinued, "but  when  they  pulled  me  out,  my  strength  had 
all  gone,  and  I  lay  helpless  on  the  snow  while  the  fel- 
lows stood  over  me  and  beat  my  knees  and  elbows 
with  sticks.  It  hurt  like  the  mischief.  When  they 
had  finished  thrashing  me  they  went  away.  And  now 
everything  on  me  began  to  freeze;  my  clothes  turned 
into  a  block  of  ice.  I  raised  myself  and  fell  down 
again.  Then — thank  goodness! — a  woman  came  by 
and  took  me  away  with  her." 

During  this  story  the  doctor  had  drunk  five  or  six 
glasses  of  vodka,  and  his  heart  was  growing  merry. 
He,  too,  wanted  to  tell  some  wonderful  yarn  to  show 
that  he  was  as  brave  a  fellow  as  they  were  and  afraid 
of  nothing. 

"Once,  in  the  province  of  Penza — "  he  began,  but, 
because  he  had  drunk  a  great  deal  and  perhaps  also 
because  they  had  caught  him  telling  a  lie,  the  peasants 
paid  no  attention  to  him,  and  even  stopped  answer- 
ing his  questions.  Worse  than  that:  they  completely 


THE  ROBBERS  189 

ignored  his  presence  and  launched  into  such  open- 
hearted  confidences  that  his  blood  ran  cold  and  his 
hair  stood  straight  on  end. 

Kalashnikoff's  manner  was  staid,  as  became  a  sober- 
minded  man  of  his  position.  He  spoke  authoritatively 
and  made  the  sign  of  the  cross  over  his  mouth  whenever 
he  yawned.  No  one  would  have  suspected  him  of  being 
a  brigand,  a  merciless  brigand,  the  scourge  of  the  un- 
fortunate, a  man  who  had  been  in  jail  twice  and  who 
would  have  been  sent  to  Siberia  had  not  his  father  and 
uncle,  thieves  like  himself,  bought  him  off.  Merik 
swaggered  like  a  young  dandy.  He  saw  that  Liubka 
and  Kalashnikoff  were  admiring  him  and  thought  him- 
self a  very  fine  fellow;  so  he  stuck  his  arms  akimbo, 
threw  out  his  chest,  and  stretched  himself  till  the  bench 
cracked. 

After  supper  Kalashnikoff  said  a  short  prayer  before 
the  icon  without  getting  up  and  shook  hands  with 
Merik;  Merik,  too,  said  a  prayer  and  returned  the 
hand-shake.  Liubka  cleared  away  the  remains  of  the 
supper,  scattered  gingerbread  cakes,  roasted  nuts,  and 
pumpkin-seeds  on  the  table,  and  brought  out  two 
bottles  of  sweet  wine. 

"Eternal  peace  to  the  soul  of  Andrew  Grigoritch!" 
said  Kalashnikoff,  and  he  and  Merik  touched  glasses. 
"  We  used  to  meet  here  or  at  my  brother  Martin's  when 
he  was  alive,  and,  Lord,  Lord,  what  fellows  we  were! 
What  talks  we  had!  Such  wonderful  talks!  There 
were  Martin  and  Filia  and  noisy  Theodore;  every- 


190  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

thing  was  so  pleasant  and  nice;  and,  heavens,  what 
sprees  we  used  to  go  on!  Oh,  what  sprees!" 

Liubka  went  out  and  came  back  in  a  few  minutes 
with  a  string  of  beads  around  her  neck  and  a  green 
kerchief  on  her  head. 

"Merik,  look  what  Kalashnikoff  brought  me  to- 
day!" she  cried. 

She  looked  at  herself  in  the  glass  and  nodded  her 
head  so  that  the  beads  tinkled.  Then  she  opened  the 
chest  and  took  out  first  a  cotton  dress  with  red  and 
blue  spots,  then  another  with  flounces  that  rustled  and 
crackled  like  paper,  and  lastly  a  blue  kerchief  shot  with 
the  colours  of  the  rainbow.  These  she  showed,  laugh- 
ing and  clapping  her  hands  as  if  amazed  at  owning  so 
many  treasures. 

Kalashnikoff  tuned  a  balalaika  and  began  to  play, 
and  the  doctor  could  not  for  the  life  of  him  make  out 
whether  the  tune  were  merry  or  sad;  at  times  it  was  so 
dreadfully  sad  that  it  made  him  want  to  cry,  and  then 
the  next  moment  it  was  gay.  Merik  suddenly  jumped 
up,  beat  on  the  floor  with  his  iron-shod  boots,  and 
then,  spreading  his  arms,  crossed  the  room  on  his  heels 
from  the  table  to  the  stove  and  from  the  stove  to  the 
chest.  Here  he  leaped  up  as  if  he  had  been  stung, 
clapped  his  feet  in  the  air,  dropped  down,  and,  sitting 
on  his  heels,  danced  helter-skelter  across  the  floor. 

Liubka  waved  both  arms,  gave  a  despairing  shriek, 
and  followed  after  him.  She  danced  sideways  at  first, 
stealthily,  as  if  trying  to  steal  up  on  some  one  and  hit 


THE  ROBBERS  191 

him  from  behind;  then  she  drummed  with  her  heels  as 
Merik  did,  spun  round  like  a  top,  and  dropped  down 
so  that  her  red  dress  floated  up  about  her  like  a  bell. 
Looking  at  her  fiercely,  and  showing  his  teeth,  Merik 
danced  toward  her,  crouching  on  his  heels,  as  if  longing 
to  destroy  her  with  his  terrible  feet;  but  she  jumped  up, 
threw  back  her  head,  and,  waving  her  arms  as  a  great 
bird  flaps  its  wings,  flew  about  the  room,  hardly  touch- 
ing the  floor. 

"What  a  glorious  girl!"  sighed  the  doctor,  sitting  on 
the  chest  and  watching  the  dancers.  "All  lightning 
and  fire!  What  would  I  not  give — "  and  he  wished  he 
were  a  peasant  instead  of  a  doctor.  Why  did  he  wear 
a  coat  and  a  chain  with  a  gilt  key  and  not  a  blue  shirt 
and  a  rope  girdle?  Then  he  might  sing  boldly  and 
dance  and  throw  his  arms  around  Liubka  as  Merik  did. 

The  fierce  stamping  and  yelling  and  huzzaing  rattled 
the  dishes  in  the  cupboard,  the  candle  flame  leaped  and 
flickered. 

The  string  broke  around  Liubka's  neck,  and  the  beads 
scattered  across  the  floor;  her  kerchief  slipped  from  her 
head,  and,  instead  of  a  girl,  all  that  could  be  seen  was  a 
red  cloud  and  the  flash  of  dark  eyes.  As  for  Merik,  it 
looked  as  if  every  instant  his  arms  and  legs  would  fly 
off. 

But  now  he  struck  the  floor  for  the  last  time  with 
his  heel  and  stopped  as  if  struck  by  lightning.  Ex- 
hausted, scarcely  able  to  breathe,  Liubka  leaned  against 
him  and  clutched  him  as  if  he  had  been  a  post.  He 


192  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

threw  his  arms  around  her  and,  looking  into  her  eyes, 
said  tenderly  and  softly  as  if  in  play: 

"I'm  going  to  find  where  the  old  woman  keeps  her 
money,  and  then  I'll  kill  her  and  cut  your  little  throat 
with  a  knife  and  set  fire  to  the  inn.  Every  one  will 
think  you  were  burned  to  death,  and  I'll  take  your 
money  and  go  to  Kuban,  and  there  I'll  herd  horses 
and  keep  sheep." 

Liubka  did  not  answer  anything  to  this,  she  only 
looked  wistfully  at  Merik  and  said: 

"Is  it  nice  in  Kuban,  Merik?" 

He  did  not  answer  her  but  went  across  to  the  chest, 
sat  down,  and  was  lost  in  thought — he  was  probably 
dreaming  of  Kuban. 

"It's  time  for  me  to  go,"  said  Kalashnikoff.  "Filia 
is  probably  waiting  for  me.  Good-bye,  Liubka." 

The  doctor  went  out  to  see  that  Kalashnikoff  did 
not  ride  away  on  his  horse.  The  storm  was  still  raging. 
White  clouds  of  snow,  catching  their  long  tails  in  the 
bushes  and  tall  grass,  swept  across  the  yard,  and  on  the 
far  side  of  the  fence  great  giants  in  white  shrouds  with 
wide  sleeves  whirled  and  fell  and  rose  again,  wrestling 
and  waving  their  arms.  What  a  wind  there  was !  The 
naked  birches  and  cherry-trees,  unable  to  resist  its 
rough  caresses,  bent  to  the  ground  and  moaned:  "For 
what  sins,  O  Lord,  hast  thou  fastened  us  to  the  earth, 
and  why  may  we  not  fly  away  free?" 

"Get  along!"  said  Kalashnikoff  roughly  as  he 
mounted  his  horse.  One  half  of  the  gate  was  open  and 


THE  ROBBERS  193 

a  huge  snow-drift  had  piled  up  beside  it.  "Come  up, 
will  you?"  cried  Kalashnikoff,  and  the  little  short- 
legged  pony  started  forward  and  buried  itself  to  the 
belly  in  the  drift.  Kalashnikoff  was  whitened  with 
snow  and  soon  he  and  his  horse  faded  out  of  sight 
beyond  the  gate. 

When  the  doctor  re-entered  the  house  he  found 
Liubka  on  the  floor  picking  up  her  beads;  Merik  was 
gone. 

"What  a  stunning  wench!"  thought  the  doctor, 
lying  down  on  the  bench  and  putting  his  coat  under 
his  head.  "If  only  Merik  weren't  here!" 

It  teased  him  to  have  Liubka  creeping  about  on  the 
floor  near  the  bench,  and  he  thought  that  if  it  weren't 
for  Merik  he  would  certainly  get  up  and  kiss  her  and 
then  see  what  would  happen  next.  It  was  true  that 
she  was  only  a  girl,  but  she  could  hardly  be  honest;  and, 
even  if  she  were,  why  need  he  be  squeamish  in  a  rob- 
ber's den?  Liubka  picked  up  her  beads  and  went  away. 
The  candle  burned  out,  and  the  flame  caught  the  bit 
of  paper  in  the  socket.  The  doctor  laid  his  revolver 
and  a  box  of  matches  beside  him  and  blew  out  the  light. 
The  lamp  before  the  icon  flickered  so  brightly  that  it 
hurt  his  eyes;  splashes  of  light  danced  across  the  ceil- 
ing, the  floor,  and  the  cupboard,  and  among  them  the 
doctor  seemed  to  see  Liubka,  deep-chested  and  strong, 
now  whirling  like  a  top,  now  breathing  heavily,  ex- 
hausted with  the  dance. 

"  Oh,  if  the  devil  would  only  take  Merik ! "  he  thought. 


194  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

The  lamp  flared  up  for  the  last  time,  winked  and 
went  out.  Some  one,  probably  Merik,  came  into  the 
room  and  sat  down  on  the  bench.  He  pulled  at  his 
pipe,  and  his  swarthy  cheeks  with  their  black  spot  were 
lit  for  a  second.  The  vile  tobacco  smoke  tickled  the 
doctor's  throat. 

"What  horrible  tobacco  you  smoke,  confound  it!" 
the  doctor  said.  "It  makes  me  sick." 

"  I  always  mix  my  tobacco  with  the  flowers  of  oats," 
answered  Merik;  "it  is  better  for  the  chest." 

He  smoked,  spat,  and  went  out.  Half  an  hour 
passed.  A  light  flashed  in  the  hall.  Merik  came  back 
in  his  hat  and  coat,  followed  by  Liubka  carrying  a 
candle. 

"Stay  here,  Merik!"  she  said  in  a  beseeching  voice. 

"No,  Liubka,  don't  detain  me." 

"Listen,  Merik,"  said  Liubka,  and  her  voice  grew 
tender  and  soft,  "I  know  you  will  find  my  mother's 
money  and  kill  her  and  me,  and  then  go  to  Kuban  and 
love  other  girls;  but  I  don't  care.  I  only  ask  one 
thing,  dearie — stay  here!" 

"No,  I  want  to  be  off  on  a  spree,"  said  Merik, 
tightening  his  belt. 

"How  can  you  go  off  on  a  spree?  You  came  here 
on  foot." 

Merik  stooped  down  and  whispered  something  in 
Liubka's  ear;  she  looked  at  the  door  and  laughed 
through  her  tears. 

"The  old  windbag  is  asleep,"  she  said. 


THE  ROBBERS  195 

Merik  took  her  in  his  arms,  gave  her  a  great  kiss,  and 
went  out-of-doors.  The  doctor  slipped  his  revolver 
into  his  pocket,  jumped  up  quickly,  and  ran  after  him. 

"Let  me  get  by!"  he  cried  to  Liubka  as  she  slammed 
and  bolted  the  front  door,  planting  herself  in  front  of 
it.  "Let  me  get  by!  What  are  you  standing  there 
for?" 

"Why  do  you  want  to  get  by?" 

"To  look  at  my  horse." 

Liubka  fixed  her  eyes  on  him  with  an  expression  both 
tender  and  sly. 

"Why  do  you  want  to  look  at  your  horse?  Look  at 
me!"  she  said,  and  bent  down  and  touched  the  gold 
key  on  his  chain  with  her  finger. 

"Let  me  get  by;  he  is  going  away  on  my  horse!" 
cried  the  doctor.  "Let  me  get  by,  damn  you!"  he 
shouted  and  struck  her  furiously  on  the  shoulder  as 
he  threw  his  whole  weight  against  her  in  order  to  shove 
her  aside.  But  she  clung  to  the  bolt  as  tightly  as  if 
she  were  made  of  steel. 

"Let  me  pass!"  he  yelled,  struggling.  "I  tell  you 
he's  going!" 

"Nonsense!  He  won't  go."  She  breathed  heavily 
and,  stroking  her  aching  shoulder,  looked  him  up  and 
down  again  from  head  to  foot,  blushed,  and  laughed. 

"Don't  go,  dearie,"  she  said;  "I  shall  be  lonely  with- 
out you." 

The  doctor  looked  into  her  eyes,  reflected,  and  kissed 
her.  She  did  not  resist  him. 


196  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"Come!    No  more  nonsense!    Let  me  get  by!" 

She  said  nothing. 

"I  heard  what  you  said  to  Merik  just  now;  you  love 
him!"  he  said. 

"That  meant  nothing;   I  know  whom  I  love." 

Again  she  touched  the  little  key  with  her  finger  and 
said  softly: 

"Give  me  that!" 

The  doctor  took  the  key  off  the  chain,  and  gave  it  to 
her.  She  suddenly  threw  back  her  head  and  listened 
to  something;  her  face  became  serious,  and  her  eyes 
seemed  to  the  doctor  to  grow  crafty  and  cold.  He  re- 
membered his  horse,  pushed  her  aside  easily,  and  ran 
out  into  the  yard.  A  sleepy  pig  was  grunting  regularly 
and  lazily  in  the  shed,  and  a  cow  was  knocking  her 
horns  against  the  walls.  The  doctor  struck  a  match 
and  saw  them  both  as  well  as  the  dogs  that  threw 
themselves  from  all  sides  toward  the  light,  but  the 
horse  had  vanished.  Shouting  and  waving  his  arms 
at  the  dogs,  stumbling  over  snow-drifts  and  sinking  into 
the  snow,  he  ran  out  beyond  the  gate  and  stared  into 
the  darkness.  Strain  his  eyes  as  he  might  he  saw 
only  the  flying  snow  that  was  piling  itself  into  many  dif- 
ferent shapes;  now  it  was  the  pale,  grinning  face  of  a 
corpse  that  glared  out  of  the  gloom,  now  a  white  horse 
galloped  by  ridden  by  a  woman  in  a  muslin  dress,  now 
a  flock  of  white  swans  flew  over  his  head.  Trembling 
with  cold  and  rage  and  not  knowing  what  to  do,  the 
doctor  fired  a  shot  at  the  dogs  without  hitting  one  and 
hurried  back  into  the  house. 


THE  ROBBERS  197 

As  he  entered  the  hall  he  distinctly  heard  some  one 
dart  out  of  the  room  and  slam  the  door.  He  went  in. 
All  was  dark.  He  tried  a  door  and  found  it  locked. 
Then,  striking  match  after  match,  he  ran  back  into 
the  hall,  from  there  into  the  kitchen,  and  from  the 
kitchen  into  a  little  room  where  all  the  walls  were  hung 
with  skirts  and  dresses  and  the  air  smelled  of  herbs 
and  fennel.  In  a  corner  near  the  stove  stood  a  bed 
with  a  whole  mountain  of  pillows  on  it.  This  was  prob- 
ably where  the  old  woman  lived.  From  here  the  doctor 
passed  into  another  little  room,  and  there  he  found 
Liubka.  She  was  lying  on  a  chest  and  was  covered 
with  a  bright  patchwork  quilt.  She  pretended  to  be 
asleep.  At  her  head  hung  an  icon  with  a  lamp  burn- 
ing before  it. 

"Where  is  my  horse?"  asked  the  doctor  sternly. 

Liubka  did  not  move. 

"Where  is  my  horse,  I  say?"  he  repeated  more 
sternly  still  and  jerked  the  quilt  off  her.  "Answer 
me,  you  she-devil!"  he  shouted. 

Liubka  jumped  up  and  fell  on  her  knees,  shrinking 
against  the  wall.  With  one  hand  she  grasped  her 
chemise,  the  other  clutched  at  the  quilt;  she  glared 
at  the  doctor  with  horror  and  fear,  and,  like  an  animal 
in  a  trap,  her  eyes  craftily  followed  every  movement 
he  made. 

"Tell  me  where  my  horse  is  or  I'll  shake  the  life  out 
of  you!"  he  yelled. 

"Get  away,  you  beast!"  she  said  hoarsely. 


198  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

The  doctor  seized  the  neck  of  her  chemise,  it  tore; 
then,  unable  to  contain  himself,  he  caught  the  girl  in 
his  arms.  Hissing  with  rage,  she  slipped  out  of  his 
embrace,  and,  freeing  one  arm — the  other  was  caught 
in  her  torn  chemise — she  struck  him  on  the  head  with 
her  fist. 

The  room  swam  before  his  eyes,  something  roared 
and  thumped  in  his  ears;  as  he  staggered  back  she 
dealt  him  another  blow,  this  time  on  the  temple. 

Reeling  and  clutching  at  the  doors  to  keep  himself 
from  falling,  he  made  his  way  into  the  room  where 
his  things  were  and  lay  down  on  the  bench.  After 
lying  still  for  a  while  he  took  a  box  of  matches  out  of 
his  pocket  and  struck  them  one  by  one  in  an  aimless 
way,  blowing  them  out  and  throwing  them  under  the 
table.  This  he  did  till  the  matches  were  all  gone. 

But  now  the  darkness  was  fading  behind  the  window- 
panes  and  the  cocks  were  beginning  to  crow.  Ergu- 
noff's  head  still  ached  and  he  heard  a  roaring  in  his 
ears  as  if  he  were  sitting  under  a  railway  bridge  with 
a  train  going  over  his  head.  He  managed  somehow 
to  put  on  his  hat  and  coat,  but  his  saddle  and  bundle 
of  purchases  had  vanished  and  his  saddle-bags  were 
empty.  It  was  not  for  nothing  that  some  one  had 
slipped  out  of  the  room  as  he  came  in  the  night  before! 

He  took  a  poker  from  the  kitchen  to  keep  off  the 
dogs  and  went  out  into  the  yard,  leaving  the  door  ajar. 
The  wind  had  died  down;  all  was  quiet.  He  went  out 
at  the  gate.  The  country  lay  still  as  death;  not  a  bird 


THE  ROBBERS  199 

could  be  seen  in  the  morning  sky.  A  forest  of  little 
trees  lay  like  a  blue  mist  on  either  side  of  the  road, 
as  far  as  the  eye  could  see. 

The  doctor  forced  himself  to  think  of  the  reception 
that  awaited  him  at  the  hospital  and  of  what  his  chief 
would  say.  He  felt  that  he  absolutely  must  think  of 
it  and  decide  beforehand  how  to  answer  the  questions 
that  would  be  put  to  him,  but  these  thoughts  grew 
vague  and  dispersed.  He  thought  only  of  Liubka  as 
he  walked  along  and  of  the  peasants  with  whom  he 
had  spent  the  night.  He  remembered  how  Liubka, 
when  she  struck  him  the  second  time,  had  stooped  to 
pick  up  the  quilt  and  of  how  her  loosened  braid  had 
swept  the  floor.  He  grew  confused  and  wondered  why 
doctors  and  doctors'  assistants,  merchants,  clerks,  and 
peasants  existed  in  the  world  and  not  simply  free 
people.  Birds  were  free  and  wild  animals  were  free, 
Merik  was  free — they  were  afraid  of  nothing  and  de- 
pendent on  no  one.  Who  had  decreed  that  one  must 
get  up  in  the  morning,  have  dinner  at  noon,  and  go  to 
bed  at  night?  Or  that  a  doctor  was  above  his  assistant; 
that  one  must  live  in  a  house  and  love  only  one's  wife? 
Why  not,  on  the  contrary,  have  dinner  at  night  and 
sleep  all  day?  Oh,  to  jump  on  a  horse  without  asking 
to  whom  it  belonged  and  race  down  the  wind,  through 
woods  and  fields,  to  the  devil!  Oh,  to  make  love  to 
the  girls  and  to  snap  one's  fingers  at  the  whole  world! 

The  doctor  dropped  his  poker  in  the  snow,  leaned 
his  forehead  against  the  cold,  white  trunk  of  a  birch- 


200  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

tree,  and  thought;  and  his  grey,  monotonous  life,  his 
salary,  his  dependence,  his  drugs,  his  everlasting  fuss- 
ing with  bottles  and  flies  seemed  to  him  contemptible 
and  sickening. 

"Who  says  it  is  a  sin  to  lead  a  wild  life?"  he  asked 
himself.  "Those  who  have  never  known  freedom  as 
Merik  and  Kalashnikoff  have!  Those  who  have  never 
loved  Liubka!  They  are  beggars  all  their  lives;  they 
love  only  their  wives  and  live  without  joy,  like  frogs 
in  a  pond." 

And  of  himself  he  thought  that  if  he  were  not  a  thief 
and  a  ruffian  yes — and  a  highwayman,  too — it  was 
only  because  he  did  not  know  how  to  be  one  and  be- 
cause the  opportunity  had  never  come  in  his  way. 

A  year  and  a  half  passed.  One  spring  night  after 
Easter  the  doctor,  long  since  dismissed  from  the  hos- 
pital and  without  work,  came  out  of  a  saloon  in  Repin 
and  wandered  aimlessly  down  the  street  and  out  into 
the  open  country. 

Here  the  air  smelled  of  spring  and  a  warm,  caressing 
breeze  was  blowing.  The  peaceful  stars  looked  down 
upon  the  earth.  How  deep  the  sky  looked,  and  how 
immeasurably  vast,  stretched  across  the  world!  "The 
world  is  well  created,"  thought  the  doctor,  "but  why 
and  for  what  purpose  do  men  divide  themselves  into 
the  drunk  and  the  sober,  into  workers  and  those  who 
are  out  of  work,  and  so  forth?  Why  does  the  sober, 
well-fed  man  sleep  quietly  at  home  while  the  drunken, 


THE  ROBBERS  201 

starving  one  must  wander  in  the  fields  without  a  place 
to  lay  his  head?  Why  must  the  man  that  doesn't 
serve  others  for  wages  always  go  unfed,  unshod,  and 
in  rags?  Who  decreed  this?  The  birds  and  beasts  of 
the  forest  don't  work  for  wages  but  live  according  to 
their  own  sweet  wills." 

A  splendid  red  light  flared  up  over  the  horizon  and 
spread  across  the  sky.  The  doctor  stood  a  long  time 
looking  at  it  and  thought:  "What  if  I  did  take  a 
samovar  yesterday  that  didn't  belong  to  me  and  throw 
away  the  money  at  the  tavern?  Was  that  a  sin?  Why 
was  it  a  sin?" 

Two  wagons  went  by  on  the  road;  in  one  lay  a  sleep- 
ing woman,  in  the  other  sat  an  old  man  without  a  hat. 

"Whose  house  is  that  burning,  daddy?"  asked  the 
doctor. 

"Andrew  TchirikofTs  inn,"  answered  the  old  man. 

Then  the  doctor  thought  of  all  that  had  happened 
to  him  at  that  inn  one  winter's  night  a  year  and  a  half 
ago  and  remembered  Merik's  boast;  he  saw  in  imag- 
ination Liubka  and  the  old  woman  burning  with  their 
throats  cut  and  envied  Merik.  As  he  went  back  to  the 
tavern  and  looked  at  the  houses  of  the  wealthy  inn- 
keepers, cattle  dealers,  and  blacksmiths  he  thought: 
"How  good  it  would  be  if  I  could  make  my  way  by 
night  into  some  house  inhabited  by  people  who  are 
still  richer!" 


LEAN  AND  FAT 

TWO  friends  once  met  in  a  railway  station;  one 
was  fat  and  the  other  was  lean.  The  fat  man 
had  just  finished  dinner  at  the  station;  his  lips  were 
still  buttery  and  as  glossy  as  ripe  cherries.  A  perfume 
of  sherry  and  fleurs  d'oranger  hung  about  him.  The 
lean  man  had  just  stepped  out  of  the  train  and  was 
loaded  down  with  hand-bags,  bundles,  and  band- 
boxes. He  smelled  of  ham  and  coffee-grounds.  The 
thin  little  woman  with  a  long  chin  who  peeped  out 
from  behind  his  back  was  his  wife  and  the  tall  school- 
boy with  the  half-closed  eyes  was  his  son. 

"  Porfiri ! "  exclaimed  the  fat  man  as  he  caught  sight 
of  the  lean  one.  "Is  that  really  you?  My  dear  old 
friend!  It  is  an  age  since  we  last  met." 

"Good  Heavens!"  cried  the  lean  man,  astounded. 
"Misha!  The  friend  of  my  childhood!  Where  have 
you  come  from?" 

The  friends  embraced  thrice  and  stared  at  each 
other  with  tears  in  their  eyes.  Both  were  agreeably 
overcome. 

"Dear  old  chap!"  began  the  lean  man  after  the 
embrace  was  over.  "I  never  expected  this!  What  a 
surprise!  Here!  Look  at  me  properly!  You  are  the 
202 


LEAN  AND  FAT  203 

same  handsome  fellow  you  always  were !  The  same  old 
darling;  the  same  old  dandy !  Oh,  Lord,  Lord!  Come, 
tell  me!  Are  you  rich?  Are  you  married?  I  am  mar- 
ried, as  you  see.  Here!  This  is  my  wife,  Louisa,  for- 
merly Vanzenbach — a  Lutheran.  And  this  is  my  son 
Nathaniel,  in  the  third  class  at  school.  Nathaniel, 
this  is  a  friend  of  my  youth !  •  We  were  at  school  to- 
gether!" 

Nathaniel  reflected  and  then  took  off  his  cap. 

"We  were  at  school  together!"  the  thin  man  con- 
tinued. "Do  you  remember  how  they  used  to  tease 
you  and  call  you  Herostratus  because  you  once  burned 
a  school-book  with  a  cigarette?  And  how  I  used  to  be 
teased  by  being  called  Ephialtus  because  I  used  to  tell 
tales  on  the  others?  What  boys  we  were!  Don't  be 
afraid,  Nathaniel;  come  up  closer!  And  this  is  my 
wife,  formerly  Vanzenbach — a  Lutheran." 

Nathaniel  reflected  and  then  hid  himself  behind  his 
father's  back. 

"  Well,  well !  And  how  goes  the  world  with  you,  old 
fellow?"  inquired  the  fat  man,  looking  at  his  friend 
with  delight.  "Are  you  working  now  or  have  you  re- 
tired?" 

"I  am  working,  old  man.  This  is  the  second  year 
that  I  have  been  a  collegiate  assessor,  and  I  have  been 
awarded  the  Order  of  St.  Stanislas.  The  salary  is 
small,  but  never  mind!  My  wife  gives  music-lessons 
and  I  privately  make  cigarette  cases  out  of  wood — 
first-class  cigarette  cases!  I  sell  them  for  one  rouble 


204  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

apiece.  If  you  take  ten  or  more  I  make  a  reduction, 
of  course.  We  manage  to  get  along  somehow.  1 
used  to  be  employed  in  one  of  the  departments,  you 
know,  but  I  have  been  transferred  by  the  administra- 
tion to  this  place.  And  how  about  you?  You  are 
probably  state  councilor  by  now,  are  you  not?" 

"No,  old  man;  guess  higher!"  said  the  fat  man.  "I 
am  already  privy  councilor.  I  have  two  decorations." 

The  lean  man  suddenly  paled  and  stood  rooted  to 
the  spot.  His  face  became  distorted  by  a  very  broad 
smile;  he  shrivelled  and  shrank  and  stooped  and  his 
bandboxes  shrivelled  and  grew  wrinkled.  His  wife's 
long  chin  grew  still  longer;  Nathaniel  drew  himself  up 
at  attention  and  began  doing  up  all  the  buttons  of  his 
uniform. 

"I,  your  Excellency — I  am  delighted,  I  am  sure.  A 
friend,  one  may  say,  of  one's  childhood,  has  all  at  once 
become  such  a  great  man!  Hee!  hee!  hee!" 

"Enough  of  that!"  said  the  fat  man  frowning. 
"Why  affect  such  a  tone?  You  and  I  are  old  friends; 
what's  the  need  of  all  this  respect  for  rank?" 

"Allow  me — oh,  really!"  tittered  the  lean  man, 
shrivelling  still  smaller.  "The  gracious  attention  of 
your  Excellency  is  something  on  the  order  of  a  life- 
giving  dew.  This,  your  Excellency,  is  my  son  Nathaniel. 
This  is  my  wife,  Louisa,  a  Lutheran — in  a  way — 

The  fat  man  wanted  to  retort  something,  but  such 
obsequiousness,  such  mawkishness,  such  deferential 
acidity  were  written  all  over  the  lean  man's  face  that 


LEAN  AND  FAT  205 

the  privy  councilor  was  nauseated.  He  turned  away 
from  him  and  gave  him  his  hand  in  farewell. 

The  lean  man  took  three  fingers  of  it,  bowed  with 
his  whole  body,  and  giggled  like  a  Chinaman: 

"Hee!  hee!  hee!" 

His  wife  smiled,  Nathaniel  scraped  his  foot  and 
dropped  his  cap.  All  three  were  agreeably  overcome. 


ON  THE  WAY 

"A  golden  cloud  lay  for  a  night 
On  the  breast  of  a  giant  crag." 

— LERMONTOFF. 

IN  the  room  which  the  Cossack  innkeeper,  Simon 
Tchistoplui,  himself  calls  the  "visitors'  room," 
meaning  that  it  is  set  aside  exclusively  for  travellers,  a 
tall,  broad-shouldered  man  of  forty  sat  at  a  large,  un- 
painted  table.  His  elbows  were  resting  upon  it,  his  head 
was  propped  in  his  hands,  and  he  was  asleep.  The 
stump  of  a  tallow  candle,  which  was  stuck  in  an  empty 
pomade  jar,  lit  his  red  beard,  his  broad,  thick  nose,  his 
sunburned  cheeks,  and  the  heavy  eyebrows  which  over- 
hung his  closed  eyes.  Nose,  cheeks,  and  brows — each 
feature  in  itself  was  heavy  and  coarse,  like  the  furni- 
ture and  the  stove  in  the  "visitors'  room";  but,  taken 
altogether,  they  made  up  a  harmonious  and  even  a 
beautiful  whole.  And  this  is,  generally  speaking,  the 
structure  of  the  Russian  physiognomy;  the  larger  and 
more  prominent  the  features,  the  gentler  and  kinder 
the  face  appears  to  be.  The  man  was  dressed  in  a  gen- 
tleman's short  coat,  worn  but  bound  with  new  braid,  a 
plush  waistcoat,  and  wide  black  trousers  tucked  into 
high  boots. 

206 


ON  THE  WAY  207 

On  one  of  the  benches  which  formed  a  continuous 
row  along  the  wall,  on  the  fur  of  a  fox-skin  coat,  slept 
a  little  girl  of  eight  wearing  a  brown  dress  and  long 
black  stockings.  Her  face  was  pale,  her  hair  was 
curly  and  fair,  and  her  shoulders  were  narrow;  her 
whole  body  was  lithe  and  thin,  but  her  nose  stood  out, 
a  thick  ugly  knob,  like  the  man's.  She  was  sleeping 
soundly  and  did  not  feel  that  the  round  little  comb 
which  she  wore  in  her  hair  had  slipped  down  and  was 
pressing  into  her  cheek. 

The  "visitors'  room"  wore  a  holiday  look.  The  air 
smelled  of  its  freshly  scrubbed  floor,  the  usual  array  of 
cloths  was  missing  from  the  line  which  was  stretched 
diagonally  across  the  whole  room,  and  a  little  shrine 
lamp  was  burning  in  a  corner  over  the  table,  casting  a 
red  spot  of  light  on  the  icon  of  Gregory  the  Bringer  of 
Victory.  Two  rows  of  bad  woodcuts  started  at  the 
corner  where  hung  the  icon  and  stretched  along  either 
wall,  observing  in  their  choice  of  subjects  a  rigid  and 
careful  gradation  from  the  religious  to  the  worldly. 
By  the  dim  light  of  the  candle  and  of  the  little  red  lamp 
they  looked  an  unbroken  band  covered  with  dark 
blotches,  but  when  the  stove  drew  in  its  breath  with  a 
t  howl,  as  if  longing  to  sing  in  tune  with  the  wind,  and 
the  logs  took  heart  and  broke  out  into  bright  flames, 
muttering  angrily,  then  ruddy  splashes  of  light  would 
flicker  over  the  timbered  walls  and  the  monk  Seraphim 
or  the  Shah  Nasr-Ed-Din  would  start  out  over  the  head 
of  the  sleeping  man,  or  a  fat  brown  child  would  grow 


208  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

out  of  the  darkness,  staring  and  whispering  something 
into  the  ear  of  an  uncommonly  dull  and  indifferent 
Virgin. 

Outside  a  storm  was  roaring.  Something  fiendish 
and  evil  but  profoundly  unhappy  was  prowling  about 
the  inn  with  the  fury  of  a  wild  beast,  trying  to  force 
its  way  into  the  house.  Banging  the  doors,  knocking 
on  the  windows  and  on  the  roof,  tearing  at  the  walls, 
it  would  first  threaten,  then  implore,  then  grow  silent 
awhile,  and  at  last  rush  down  the  flue  into  the  stove 
with  a  joyous,  treacherous  shriek.  But  here  the  logs 
would  flare  up  and  the  flames  leap  furiously  to  meet 
the  enemy  like  watch-dogs  on  the  chain;  a  battle  would 
ensue,  followed  by  a  sob,  a  whine,  and  an  angry  roar. 
Through  it  all  could  be  heard  the  rancorous  anguish, 
the  ungratified  hatred,  and  the  bitter  impotence  of 
one  who  has  once  been  a  victor. 

It  seemed  as  if  the  "visitors'  room"  must  lie  for  ever 
spellbound  by  this  wild,  inhuman  music;  but  at  last 
the  door  creaked  and  the  tavern  boy  came  into  the 
room  wearing  a  new  calico  shirt.  Limping  and  blinking 
his  sleepy  eyes,  he  snuffed  the  candle  with  his  fingers, 
piled  more  wood  on  the  fire,  and  went  out.  The  bells 
of  the  church,  which  at  Rogatch  lies  only  a  hundred 
steps  from  the  inn,  rang  out  for  midnight.  The  wind 
sported  with  the  sound  as  it  did  with  the  snowflakes; 
it  pursued  the  notes  and  whirled  them  over  a  mighty 
space  so  that  some  were  broken  off  short,  some  were 
drawn  out  into  long,  quavering  tones,  and  some  were 


ON  THE  WAY  209 

lost  entirely  in  the  general  uproar.  One  peal  rang  out 
as  clearly  in  the  room  as  if  it  had  been  struck  under 
the  very  window.  The  little  girl  that  lay  asleep  on 
the  fox  skins  started  and  raised  her  head.  For  a  mo- 
ment she  stared  blankly  at  the  dark  window  and  at 
Nasr-Ed-Din,  on  whom  the  red  light  from  the  stove 
was  playing,  and  then  turned  her  eyes  toward  the 
sleeping  man. 

"Papa!"  she  said 

But  the  man  did  not  move.  The  child  frowned 
crossly  and  lay  down  again,  drawing  up  her  legs.  Some 
one  yawned  long  and  loud  in  the  tap-room  on  the  other 
side  of  the  door.  Soon  after  this  came  a  faint  sound 
of  voices  and  the  squeaking  of  a  door  pulley.  Some 
one  entered  the  house,  shook  off  the  snow,  and  stamped 
his  felt  boots  with  a  muffled  sound. 

"Who  is  it?"  asked  a  lazy  female  voice. 

"The  young  lady  Ilovaiskaya  has  come,"  a  bass 
voice  answered. 

Again  the  pulley  squeaked.  The  wind  rushed  nois- 
ily in.  Some  one,  the  lame  boy  most  likely,  ran  to  the 
door  of  the  "visitors'  room,"  coughed  respectfully,  and 
touched  the  latch. 

"Come  this  way,  dear  young  lady;  come  in,"  said  a 
woman's  singsong  voice.  "Everything  is  clean  in  here, 
my  pretty " 

The  door  flew  open  and  a  bearded  peasant  appeared 
on  the  threshold  wearing  the  long  coat  of  a  coachman 
and  bearing  a  large  trunk  on  his  shoulder.  He  was 


210  STORIES' OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

plastered  with  snow  from  his  head  to  his  feet.  Behind 
him  entered  a  little  female  form  of  scarcely  half  his 
height,  showing  neither  face  nor  arms,  muffled  and 
wrapped  about  like  a  bundle  and  also  covered  with 
snow. 

A  dampness  as  from  a  cellar  blew  from  the  coachman 
and  the  bundle  toward  the  little  girl  and  the  candle 
flame  wavered. 

"How  stupid!"  cried  the  bundle  crossly.  "We 
could  go  on  perfectly  well !  We  have  only  twelve  more 
miles  to  go,  through  woods  almost  all  the  way,  and  we 
shouldn't  get  lost." 

"Lost  or  not  lost,  miss,  the  horses  won't  go  any 
farther,"  answered  the  coachman.  "Lord!  Lord! 
One  would  think  I  had  done  it  on  purpose!" 

"Heaven  knows  where  you've  brought  me  to.  But 
hush!  There  seems  to  be  some  one  asleep  here.  Go 
away." 

The  coachman  set  down  the  trunk,  at  which  the  lay- 
ers of  snow  were  shaken  from  his  shoulders,  emitted 
a  sobbing  sound  from  his  nose,  and  went  out.  Then 
the  child  saw  two  little  hands  creep  out  of  the  middle 
of  the  bundle,  rise  upward,  and  begin  angrily  to  un- 
wind a  tangle  of  shawls  and  kerchiefs  and  scarfs. 
First  a  large  shawl  fell  to  the  floor  and  then  a  hood; 
this  was  followed  by  a  white  knitted  scarf.  Having 
freed  her  head,  the  newcomer  threw  off  her  cloak  and 
at  once  appeared  half  her  former  width.  She  now 
wore  a  long,  grey  coat  with  big  buttons  and  bulging 


ON  THE  WAY  £11 

pockets.  From  one  of  these  she  drew  a  paper  parcel 
and  from  the  other  a  bunch  of  large,  heavy  keys. 
These  she  laid  down  so  carelessly  that  the  sleeping 
man  started  and  opened  his  eyes.  For  a  minute  he 
looked  dully  round  him  as  if  not  realising  where  he 
was,  then  he  threw  up  his  head  and  walked  across  to  a 
corner  where  he  sat  down.  The  newcomer  took  off 
her  coat,  which  again  narrowed  her  by  half,  pulled  off 
her  plush  overshoes,  and  also  sat  down. 

She  now  no  longer  resembled  a  bundle  but  appeared 
as  a  slender  brunette  of  twenty,  slim  as  a  little  serpent, 
with  a  pale,  oval  face  and  curly  hair.  Her  nose  Was 
long  and  pointed,  her  chin,  too,  was  long  and  pointed, 
and  the  corners  of  her  mouth  were  pointed;  in  conse- 
quence of  all  this  sharpness  the  expression  of  her  face, 
too,  was  piquant.  Squeezed  into  a  tight  black  dress 
with  a  quantity  of  lace  at  the  throat  and  sleeves,  she 
recalled  some  portrait  of  an  English  lady  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages.  The  grave,  concentrated  expression  of  her 
face  enhanced  this  resemblance. 

The  little  brunette  looked  round  the  room,  glanced 
at  the  man  and  at  the  child,  shrugged  her  shoulders, 
and  sat  down  by  the  window.  The  dark  panes  shook 
in  the  raw  west  wind;  large  snowflakes,  gleaming 
whitely,  fell  against  the  glass  and  at  once  vanished, 
swept  away  by  the  blast.  The  wild  music  grew  ever 
louder  and  louder. 

After  a  long  period  of  silence  the  child  suddenly 
turned  over  and,  crossly  rapping  out  each  word,  said: 


212  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"Lord!  Lord!  How  unhappy  I  am!  Unhappier 
than  any  one  else  in  the  world!" 

The  man  got  up  and  tiptoed  across  to  her  with 
apologetic  steps  that  ill  suited  his  great  size  and  his 
large  beard. 

"Can't  you  sleep,  darling?"  he  asked  guiltily. 
"What  do  you  want?" 

"I  don't  want  anything.  My  shoulder  hurts.  You 
are  a  horrid  man,  papa,  and  God  will  punish  you.  See 
if  he  doesn't!" 

"My  baby,  I  know  your  shoulder  hurts,  but  what 
can  I  do,  darling?"  said  the  man  in  the  voice  of  a  hus- 
band who  has  been  drinking  and  is  excusing  himself  to 
his  stern  spouse.  "Your  shoulder  aches  from  travel- 
ling, Sasha.  To-morrow  we  will  reach  our  journey's 
end,  and  then  you  can  rest  and  the  pain  will  all  go 
away." 

"To-morrow,  to-morrow!  Every  day  you  say  to- 
morrow. We're  going  to  travel  for  twenty  days  more!" 

"  But,  my  child,  I  promise  you  we  will  get  there  to- 
morrow. I  never  tell  a  story,  and  it  is  not  my  fault 
that  this  snow-storm  has  delayed  us." 

"I  can't  stand  it  any  more!    I  can't!    I  can't!" 

Sasha  rapped  her  foot  sharply  and  rent  the  air  with 
shrill,  unpleasant  wails.  Her  father  made  a  helpless 
gesture  and  glanced  in  confusion  at  the  little  brunette. 
The  girl  shrugged  her  shoulders  and  went  irresolutely 
toward  Sasha. 

"Listen,  darling,"  she  said.    "Why  do  you  cry?    I 


ON  THE  WAY  213 

know  it  is  horrid  to  have  an  aching  shoulder,  but  what 
can  we  do?" 

"You  see,  madam,"  said  the  man  hastily,  "we  have 
not  slept  for  two  nights  and  have  been  travelling  in  a 
terrible  carriage,  so  of  course  it  is  natural  that  she 
should  feel  ill  and  distressed.  And  then,  too,  we  have 
struck  a  drunken  driver,  and  our.  trunk  has  been  stolen, 
and  all  the  time  we  have  had  this  snow-storm.  But 
what's  the  use  of  crying?  The  fact  is,  this  sleeping  in  a 
sitting  position  has  tired  me.  I  feel  as  if  I  were  drunk. 
For  Heaven's  sake,  Sasha,  it's  sickening  enough  in  this 
place  as  it  is,  and  here  you  are  crying!" 

The  man  shook  his  head,  waved  his  hand  in  despair, 
and  sat  down. 

"Of  course,  one  ought  not  to  cry,"  said  the  little 
brunette.  "Only  little  babies  cry.  If  you  are  ill, 
darling,  you  had  best  get  undressed  and  go  to  sleep. 
Come,  let's  get  undressed!" 

When  the  child  had  been  undressed  and  quieted 
silence  once  more  reigned.  The  dark  girl  sat  by  the 
window  and  looked  about  the  room,  at  the  icon,  and 
at  the  stove  in  perplexity.  It  was  obvious  that  the 
place,  the  child  with  its  thick  nose  and  boy's  shirt,  and 
the  child's  father  all  appeared  strange  to  her.  This 
odd  man  sat  in  his  corner  as  if  he  were  drunk,  looked  off 
to  one  side,  and  rubbed  his  face  with  the  palm  of  his 
hand.  He  sat  silent  and  blinked,  and  any  one  seeing 
his  apologetic  appearance  would  hardly  have  expected 
him  to  begin  talking  in  a  few  minutes.  But  he  was 


214  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

the  first  to  break  silence.  He  stroked  his  knees, 
coughed,  and  began: 

"What  a  comedy  this  is,  I  declare!  I  look  about 
me  and  can  hardly  believe  my  eyes.  Why,  in  the  name 
of  mischief,  should  Fate  have  driven  us  into  this  infernal 
inn?  What  was  meant  by  it?  Life  sometimes  makes 
such  a  salto  mortale  that  one  is  fairly  staggered  with 
perplexity.  Have  you  far  to  go,  madam?" 

"No,  not  far,"  answered  the  girl.  "I  am  on  my  way 
from  our  estate,  which  is  twenty  miles  from  here,  to  our 
farm  where  my  father  and  brother  are.  My  name  is 
Ilovaiskaya  and  our  farm  is  called  Ilovaiski,  too.  It  is 
twelve  miles  from  here.  What  terrible  weather!" 

"It  couldn't  be  worse." 

The  lame  boy  entered  the  room  and  stuck  a  fresh 
candle-end  into  the  pomade  jar. 

"Here,  you  might  bring  us  a  samovar  as  quick  as 
you  can!"  the  man  said  to  him. 

"Who  wants  to  drink  tea  now?"  the  lame  boy 
laughed.  "It's  a  sin  to  drink  before  the  morning  ser- 
vice." 

"Never  mind,  be  quick.  We  shall  burn  in  hell  for 
it,  not  you." 

Over  their  tea  the  new  acquaintances  fell  into  con- 
versation. Ilovaiskaya  discovered  that  her  companion 
was  called  Gregory  Likarieff;  that  he  was  a  brother 
of  the  Likarieff  who  was  marshal  of  the  nobility  in  one 
of  the  neighbouring  counties;  that  he  himself  had  once 
been  a  landowner,  but  had  been  ruined.  Likarieff 


ON  THE  WAY  215 

learned  that  Ilovaiskaya's  name  was  Maria,  that  her 
father's  estate  was  a  very  large  one,  and  that  she  had 
the  entire  charge  of  it  herself,  as  her  father  and  brother 
were  too  easy-going  and  were  far  too  much  addicted  to 
coursing. 

"My  father  and  brother  are  all,  all  alone  on  the  farm," 
said  Ilovaiskaya,  twiddling  her -fingers.  (She  had  a 
habit  of  moving  her  fingers  before  her  piquant  face 
when  she  was  speaking,  and  of  moistening  her  lips 
with  her  pointed  little  tongue  at  the  end  of  each  sen- 
tence.) "Men  are  careless  creatures  and  never  will 
raise  a  finger  to  help  themselves.  I  wonder  who  will 
give  my  father  and  brother  their  breakfast  after  this 
fast.  We  have  no  mother,  and  the  servants  we  have 
won't  even  lay  the  table-cloth  straight  without  me. 
You  can  imagine  the  position  my  father  and  brother 
are  in.  They  will  find  themselves  without  food  to 
break  their  fast  with  while  I  have  to  sit  here  all  night. 
How  strange  it  all  is!" 

Ilovaiskaya  shrugged  her  shoulders,  sipped  her  tea, 
and  continued: 

"There  are  some  holidays  that  have  a  scent  of  their 
own.  At  Easter  and  Christmas  and  on  Trinity  Sunday 
the  air  always  smells  of  something  unusual.  Even  un- 
believers love  these  holidays.  My  brother,  for  in- 
stance, says  that  there  is  no  God,  yet  on  Easter  Sunday 
he  is  always  the  first  to  run  to  the  vigil  service." 

Likarieff  raised  his  eyes  to  Ilovaiskaya's  face  and 
laughed. 


216  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"They  say  there  is  no  God,"  the  girl  continued  and 
laughed,  too.  "  But  tell  me,  why  do  all  great  writers 
and  students  and  all  wise  people  in  general  believe 
in  God  at  the  end  of  their  lives?" 

"If  a  man  has  not  been  able  to  believe  in  his  youth, 
my  lady,  he  will  not  believe  in  his  old  age,  were  he 
never  so  many  times  a  great  writer." 

Judging  from  the  sound  of  his  cough,  Likarieff  pos- 
sessed a  bass  voice,  but,  whether  from  fear  of  talking 
loud  or  whether  from  excessive  timidity,  he  now  spoke 
in  a  high  one.  After  a  short  silence  he  sighed  and  said : 

"My  idea  is  this,  that  faith  is  a  gift  of  the  soul. 
It  is  like  any  other  talent:  one  must  be  born  with  it 
to  possess  it.  Judging  from  my  own  case,  from  the 
people  I  have  known  in  my  life,  and  from  all  I  have 
seen  going  on  about  me,  I  believe  this  talent  to  be  in- 
herent in  Russians  in  the  highest  degree.  Russian  life 
is  made  up  of  a  constant  succession  of  beliefs  and  en- 
thusiasms and  Russians  have  not  yet  scented  unbelief 
and  negation.  If  a  Russian  doesn't  believe  in  God 
then  he  believes  in  something  else." 

Likarieff  accepted  a  cup  of  tea  from  Ilovaiskaya, 
swallowed  half  of  it  at  a  gulp,  and  went  on: 

"  I  will  tell  you  how  it  is  with  me.  Nature  has  placed 
in  my  soul  an  unusual  faculty  for  believing.  Between 
you  and  me,  half  of  my  life  has  been  spent  in  the  ranks 
of  the  atheists  and  nihilists,  and  yet  there  has  never 
been  an  hour  when  I  have  not  believed.  All  talents, 
as  a  rule,  make  their  appearance  in  early  childhood. 


ON  THE  WAY  217 

and  my  gift  showed  itself  when  I  could  still  walk  up- 
right under  the  table.  My  mother  used  to  like  to  have 
her  children  eat  a  great  deal,  and  when  she  was  feeding 
me  she  used  to  say: 

"  'Eat!  Soup  is  the  most  important  thing  in  life!' 
I  believed  it.  I  ate  soup  ten  times  a  day.  I  ate  like  a 
wolf  till  I  swooned  with  loathing.  •  When  my  nurse  told 
me  fairy-stories  I  believed  in  hobgoblins  and  demons 
and  every  kind  of  deviltry.  I  used  to  steal  corrosive 
sublimate  from  my  father  and  sprinkle  it  on  little 
cakes  and  spread  them  out  in  the  attic  to  poison  the 
house  sprites.  But  when  I  learned  how  to  read  and 
could  understand  the  meaning  of  what  I  read  I  kept 
the  whole  province  in  an  uproar.  I  started  to  run  away 
to  America;  I  turned  highwayman;  I  tried  to  enter 
a  monastery;  I  hired  little  boys  to  crucify  me  as  if  I 
were  Christ.  You  will  notice  that  my  beliefs  were  all 
active  and  never  lifeless.  If  I  started  for  America  I 
did  not  go  alone,  but  seduced  some  fool  like  myself, 
and  I  was  glad  when  I  froze  outside  the  walls  of  the 
town  and  got  a  thrashing.  If  I  turned  highwayman 
I  invariably  came  home  with  a  face  all  beaten  up.  I 
had  an  extremely  agitated  childhood,  I  can  assure  you ! 
And  then,  when  I  was  sent  to  school  and  had  such 
truths  instilled  into  me  as  that,  for  instance,  the  earth 
revolves  round  the  sun,  or  that  white  light  is  not  white 
but  is  made  up  of  seven  different  colours,  then  how  my 
little  brain  did  hum!  Everything  was  in  a  whirl  in  my 
head  now:  Joshua  arresting  the  sun  in  its  course, 


218  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

my  mother  denying  the  existence  of  lightning-rods  on 
the  authority  of  the  prophet  Elijah,  my  father  indif- 
ferent to  the  truths  I  had  discovered.  My  own  in- 
sight stifled  me.  Like  one  insane,  I  roved  through  the 
house  and  stables  preaching  my  truths,  overcome  with 
horror  at  the  sight  of  ignorance  and  burning  with 
indignation  toward  all  those  who  in  white  light  saw 
only  white — but  all  that  is  childish  nonsense.  My  se- 
rious enthusiasms  began  when  I  was  at  the  university. 
Have  you  ever  taken  a  course  of  learning  anywhere, 
madam?" 

"Yes,  in  Novotcherkass,  at  the  Donski  Institute." 
"But  you  have  never  followed  a  course  of  lectures? 
Then  you  probably  don't  know  what  a  science  is. 
Every  science  in  the  world  must  possess  one  and  the 
same  passport,  without  which  it  is  senseless;  it  must 
aspire  to  the  truth.  Every  one  of  them,  down  to 
pharmaceutics  even,  has  its  object,  and  this  object 
is  not  to  bring  usefulness  or  comfort  into  life  but  to 
seek  the  truth.  It  is  wonderful!  When  you  set  to 
work  to  learn  a  science  it  is  the  beginning  which 
first  astounds  you.  Believe  me,  there  is  nothing  more 
splendid,  more  captivating,  nothing  that  so  stuns  and 
grips  the  human  soul  as  the  beginnings  of  a  science. 
After  the  first  five  or  six  lectures  the  highest  hopes 
beckon  you  on.  You  already  fancy  yourself  the  master 
of  truth.  And  I  gave  myself  up  to  science,  heart  and 
soul,  as  passionately  as  I  would  give  myself  to  a  be- 
loved woman.  I  was  its  slave,  and  there  was  no  sun 


ON  THE  WAY  219 

for  me  but  science.  Night  and  day  I  pored  and  howled 
over  my  books  without  raising  my  head,  weeping  when 
I  saw  people  exploiting  science  for  their  own  personal 
ends.  The  joke  is  that  every  science,  like  a  recurring 
decimal,  has  a  beginning  and  no  end.  Zoology  has 
discovered  thirty-five  thousand  five  hundred  different 
species  of  insects;  chemistry  can  count  sixty -five  ele- 
ments; if  you  were  to  add  ten  zeros  to  the  right  of  each 
of  these  figures,  zoology  and  chemistry  would  be  no 
nearer  the  end  of  their  labours  than  they  are  now;  all 
contemporary  scientific  work  consists  in  exactly  this 
augmentation  of  numbers.  I  saw  through  that  hocus- 
pocus  when  I  discovered  the  three  thousand  five  hun- 
dred and  first  species  and  still  did  not  attain  content- 
ment. However,  I  had  no  time  for  disillusionment,  for 
I  soon  fell  a  prey  to  a  new  passion.  I  plunged  into 
nihilism  with  its  manifestos,  its  secret  transformations, 
and  all  its  tricks  of  the  trade.  I  went  among  the  peo- 
ple; I  worked  in  factories,  as  a  painter,  as  a  boatman 
on  the  river  Volga.  Then,  as  I  roamed  across  Russia 
and  the  scent  of  Russian  life  came  to  my  nostrils,  I 
changed  into  its  ardent  worshipper.  My  heart  ached 
with  love  for  the  Russian  people.  I  believed  in  their 
God,  in  their  language,  in  their  creative  power,  and 
so  on  and  so  on.  I  have  been  a  Slavophil  and  have 
wearied  Aksakoff  with  letters;  I  have  been  an  Ukrain- 
ophil,  and  an  archaeologist,  and  a  collector  of  examples 
of  native  genius — I  have  fallen  in  love  with  ideas,  with 
people,  with  events,  with  places,  time  upon  time  with- 


220  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

out  end.  Five  years  ago  I  was  the  slave  of  the  denial 
of  the  right  of  ownership.  Non-opposition  of  evil  was 
my  latest  belief." 

Sasha  stirred  and  heaved  a  shuddering  sigh.  Li- 
karieff  rose  and  went  to  her. 

"Do  you  want  some  tea,  my  little  one?"  he  asked 
tenderly. 

"Drink  it  yourself!"  the  child  answered  roughly. 
Likarieff  was  embarrassed  and  returned  guiltily  to  the 
table. 

"So  you  have  had  an  amusing  life,"  said  Hovais- 
kaya.  "You  have  much  to  remember." 

"Well,  yes,  it  all  seems  amusing  when  one  is  sitting 
over  one's  tea  gossiping  with  a  sweet  companion,  but 
figure  to  yourself  what  that  amusement  has  cost  me! 
What  has  it  led  to?  You  see,  I  did  not  believe  'zier- 
lich-manierlich'  like  a  German  doctor  of  philosophy;  I 
did  not  live  in  a  desert;  every  passion  of  mine  bowed 
me  under  its  yoke  and  tore  my  body  limb  from  limb. 
Judge  for  yourself.  I  used  to  be  as  rich  as  my  brothers, 
and  now  I  am  a  beggar.  On  the  offspring  of  my  en- 
thusiasms I  have  squandered  my  own  fortune,  that  of 
my  wife,  and  a  great  deal  of  the  money  of  others.  I 
am  now  forty-two,  old  age  is  upon  me,  and  I  am  as 
homeless  as  a  dog  that  has  strayed  at  night  from  a 
train  of  wagons.  I  have  never  in  my  life  known  what 
peace  is.  My  soul  has  always  been  weary  and  has 
suffered  even  from  hoping.  I  have  wasted  away  under 
this  heavy,  disorderly  labour;  I  have  endured  priva- 


ON  THE  WAY  221 

tions;  I  have  been  five  times  to  prison;  I  have  trailed 
all  over  the  provinces  of  Archangel  and  Tobolsk.  I 
ache  to  remember  it.  I  have  lived,  and  in  the  fumes 
that  enveloped  me  I  have  missed  life  itself.  Can  you 
believe  it?  I  cannot  recall  one  single  spring;  I  did  not 
notice  that  my  wife  loved  me;  I  did  not  notice  when 
my  children  were  born.  What  else  can  I  tell  you?  To 
all  who  have  loved  me  I  have  brought  misfortune.  My 
mother  has  already  worn  mourning  for  me  for  fifteen 
years;  my  proud  brothers,  for  my  sake,  have  endured 
agonies  of  soul  and  blushed  for  me  and  hung  their 
heads,  and  have  wasted  their  money  on  me  till  at  last 
they  have  come  to  hate  me  like  poison." 

Likarieff  rose  and  then  sat  down  again. 

"If  I  alone  were  unhappy  I  would  give  thanks  to 
God,"  he  continued  without  looking  at  Hovaiskaya. 
"My  own  personal  happiness  vanishes  into  the  back- 
ground when  I  remember  how  often  in  my  passions  I 
have  been  absurd,  unjust,  cruel,  dangerous,  far  from 
the  truth!  How  often  I  have  hated  and  despised  with 
my  whole  soul  those  whom  I  should  have  loved,  and — 
on  the  contrary!  I  have  changed  a  thousand  times. 
To-day  I  believe  and  prostrate  myself,  to-morrow  I  run 
like  a  coward  from  my  gods  and  my  friends  of  to-day, 
silently  swallowing  the  charge  of  dastard  that  is  flung 
after  me.  God  only  knows  how  often  I  have  wept  and 
gnawed  my  pillow  for  shame  at  my  enthusiasms!  I 
have  never  in  my  life  wittingly  told  a  lie  or  done  an 
evil  deed,  but  my  conscience  is  not  clear;  no,  I  cannot 


222  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

even  boast  of  not  having  a  death  on  my  mind,  for  my 
wife  died  under  my  very  eyes,  exhausted  by  my  restless- 
ness. Listen!  There  now  exist  in  society  two  ways 
of  regarding  women.  Some  men  measure  the  female 
skull  and  prove  in  that  way  that  woman  is  the  inferior 
of  man;  they  seek  out  her  defects  in  order  to  deride 
her,  in  order  to  appear  original  in  her  eyes,  in  order 
to  justify  their  own  bestiality.  Others  try  with  all 
their  might  to  raise  woman  to  their  own  level;  they 
oblige  her  to  con  the  three  thousand  five  hundred 
species  and  to  speak  and  write  the  same  folly  that  they 
speak  and  write  themselves." 

Likarieff's  face  darkened. 

"But  I  tell  you  that  woman  always  has  been  and 
always  will  be  the  slave  of  man,"  he  said  in  a  deep 
voice,  banging  on  the  table  with  his  fist.  "She  is  a 
soft  and  tender  wax  out  of  which  man  has  always  been 
able  to  fashion  whatever  he  had  a  mind  to.  Good 
God!  For  a  man's  penny  passion  she  will  cut  off  her 
hair,  desert  her  family,  and  die  in  exile.  There  is  not 
one  feminine  principle  among  all  those  for  which  she 
has  sacrificed  herself.  She  is  a  defenceless,  devoted 
slave.  I  have  measured  no  skulls,  but  I  say  this  from 
grievous,  bitter  experience.  The  proudest,  the  most 
independent  of  women,  if  I  can  but  succeed  in  com- 
municating my  passion  to  her,  will  follow  me  unreason- 
ingly,  unquestioningly,  doing  all  I  desire.  Out  of  a 
nun  I  once  made  a  nihilist  who,  I  heard  later,  shot  a 
policeman.  In  all  my  wanderings  my  wife  never  left 


ON  THE  WAY  223 

me  for  an  instant,  and,  like  a  weathercock,  changed  her 
faith  with  each  of  my  changing  passions." 

Likarieff  leaped  up  and  walked  about  the  room. 

"It  is  a  noble,  an  exalted  bondage!"  he  cried,  clasp- 
ing his  hands.  "In  that  bondage  lies  the  loftiest  sig- 
nificance of  woman's  existence.  Of  all  the  terrible  ab- 
surdities that  filled  my  brain  during  my  intercourse 
with  women,  my  memory  has  retained,  like  a  filter, 
not  theories  nor  wise  words  nor  philosophy,  but  that 
extraordinary  submission,  that  wonderful  compassion, 
that  universal  forgiveness " 

Likarieff  clinched  his  hands,  fixed  his  eyes  on  one 
spot,  and  with  a  sort  of  passionate  tension,  as  if  he 
were  sucking  at  each  word,  muttered  between  set  teeth: 

"This — this  magnanimous  toleration,  this  faithful- 
ness unto  death,  this  poetry  of  heart —  The  meaning 
of  life  lies  in  this  uncomplaining  martyrdom,  in  this 
all-pardoning  love  that  brings  light  and  warmth  into 
the  chaos  of  life " 

Ilovaiskaya  rose  slowly,  took  a  step  in  the  direction 
of  Likarieff,  and  fixed  her  eyes  on  his  face.  By  the 
tears  which  shone  on  his  lashes,  by  his  trembling,  pas- 
sionate utterance,  she  saw  clearly  that  women  were  not 
a  mere  casual  topic  of  conversation;  they  were  the  ob- 
ject of  a  new  passion  or,  as  he  called  it  himself,  a  new 
belief.  For  the  first  time  in  her  life  Ilovaiskaya  saw 
before  her  a  man  inspired  by  passionate  faith.  Ges- 
ticulating, with  shining  eyes,  he  appeared  to  her  in- 
sane, delirious,  but  in  the  fire  of  his  glance,  in  his 


224  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

speech,  in  the  movements  of  his  whole  great  frame  she 
felt  such  beauty  that,  without  being  conscious  of  it 
herself,  she  stood  paralysed  before  him  and  looked  into 
his  face  with  rapture. 

"Take  my  mother!"  he  cried,  holding  out  his  arms 
to  her  with  a  face  of  supplication.  "I  have  poisoned 
her  existence;  I  have  dishonoured  her  name;  I  have 
harmed  her  as  much  as  her  bitterest  enemy  could 
have  done — and  what  is  her  answer?  My  brothers 
give  her  pennies  for  holy  wafers  and  Te  Deums,  and 
she  strangles  her  religious  sentiments  and  sends  them  in 
secret  to  her  worthless  Gregory.  Those  little  coins 
are  far  stronger  to  teach  and  ennoble  the  soul  than  all 
the  theories  and  wise  sayings  and  three  thousand  five 
hundred  species.  I  could  cite  to  you  a  thousand  exam- 
ples. Take,  for  instance,  yourself!  Here  you  are,  on 
your  way  to  your  father  and  brother  at  midnight,  in 
a  blizzard,  because  you  want  to  cheer  their  holiday  by 
your  tenderness,  and  all  the  time,  perhaps,  they  are 
not  thinking  of  you  and  have  forgotten  your  existence! 
Wait  until  you  love  a  man!  Then  you  will  go  to  the 
north  pole  for  him.  You  would,  wouldn't  you?" 

"Yes,  if— I  loved  him." 

"There,  you  see!"  rejoiced  Likarieff,  and  he  even 
stamped  his  foot.  "Good  Lord!  How  glad  I  am  to 
have  known  you!  It  is  my  good  fortune  to  keep  meet- 
ing the  most  magnificent  people.  There  is  not  a  day 
that  I  do  not  meet  some  one  for  whom  I  would  sell  my 
soul.  There  are  far  more  good  people  in  this  world 


ON  THE  WAY  225 

than  bad  ones.  See  how  freely  and  open-heartedly  you 
and  I  have  been  talking  together,  as  if  we  had  been 
friends  for  a  century!  Sometimes,  I  tell  you,  a  man 
will  have  the  courage  to  hold  his  tongue  for  ten  years 
with  his  wife  and  friends,  and  then  will  suddenly  meet 
a  cadet  in  a  railway  carriage  and  blurt  out  his  whole 
soul  to  him.  This  is  the  first  time  I  have  had  the 
pleasure  of  seeing  you,  and  yet  I  have  confessed  to  you 
things  I  have  never  confessed  to  any  one  before.  Why 
is  that?" 

Rubbing  his  hands  and  smiling  happily,  Likarieff 
walked  about  the  room  and  once  more  began  to  talk 
of  women.  The  church-bell  rang  for  the  vigil  service. 

"Oh!  Oh!"  wept  Sasha.  "He  talks  so  much  he 
won't  let  me  sleep!" 

"Yes,  that  is  true,"  said  Likarieff,  recollecting  him- 
self. "I'm  sorry,  my  little  one.  Go  to  sleep;  go  to 
sleep " 

"I  have  two  little  boys  besides  her,"  he  whispered. 
"They  live  with  their  uncle,  but  this  one  couldn't  sur- 
vive for  a  day  without  her  father.  She  complains  and 
grumbles,  but  she  clings  to  me  like  a  fly  to  honey.  But 
I  have  been  chattering  too  much,  my  dear  young  lady, 
and  have  kept  you  from  sleeping.  Will  you  let  me  pre- 
pare a  couch  for  you?" 

Without  waiting  for  her  permission,  he  shook  out 
her  wet  cloak  and  laid  it  along  the  bench  with  the  fur 
side  up,  picked  up  her  scattered  scarfs  and  shawls, 
folded  her  coat  into  a  roll,  and  placed  it  at  the  head  of 


226  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

the  couch.  He  did  all  this  in  silence,  with  an  expres- 
sion of  humble  reverence  on  his  face,  as  if  he  were 
busied  not  with  feminine  rags  but  with  the  fragments 
of  some  holy  vessel. 

His  whole  frame  had  a  guilty  and  embarrassed  look 
as  if  he  were  ashamed  of  being  so  large  and  strong  in 
the  presence  of  a  weak  being. 

When  Ilovaiskaya  had  lain  down  he  blew  out  the 
candle  and  took  a  seat  on  a  stool  beside  the  stove. 

"And  so,  my  little  lady,"  he  whispered,  puffing  at  a 
thick  cigarette  and  blowing  the  smoke  into  the  stove, 
"nature  has  given  the  Russian  an  extraordinary  facil- 
ity for  belief,  an  investigating  mind,  and  the  gift  of 
speculation;  but  all  this  is  scattered  like  chaff  before 
his  laziness,  his  indifference,  and  his  dreamy  frivolity — 

Ilovaiskaya  stared  wonderingly  into  the  shadows  and 
saw  only  the  red  spot  on  the  icon  and  the  flickering 
firelight  on  the  face  of  Likarieff.  The  darkness,  the 
ringing  of  the  church-bells,  the  roar  of  the  storm,  the 
lame  boy,  the  grumbling  Sasha,  the  unhappy  Likarieff 
and  his  sayings — all  these  flowed  together  in  the  girl's 
mind  and  grew  into  one  gigantic  impression.  The 
world  seemed  fantastic  to  her,  full  of  marvels  and 
forces  of  magic.  All  that  she  had  just  heard  rang  in 
her  ears,  and  the  life  of  man  seemed  to  her  to  be  a 
lovely  and  poetical  fairy-tale  without  an  ending. 

The  mighty  impression  grew  and  grew,  engulfed  her 
consciousness,  and  changed  into  a  sweet  dream.  Ho- 


ON  THE  WAY  227 

vaiskaya  slept,  but  she  still  saw  the  little  shrine  lamp 
and  the  large  nose  on  which  the  ruddy  firelight  was 
playing. 

She  heard  weeping. 

"Dear  papa!"  a  tender  child's  voice  besought.  "Do 
let  us  go  back  to  uncle !  There  they  have  a  Christmas 
tree,  and  Stephen  and  Nicolas  are  there!" 

"My  darling,  what  can  I  do?"  entreated  the  deep, 
low  voice  of  a  man.  "Understand  me,  do  under- 
stand!" 

And  a  man's  weeping  was  joined  to  that  of  the'child. 
This  voice  of  human  woe  in  the  midst  of  the  howl- 
ing storm  seemed  to  the  girl's  ears  such  sweet,  human 
music  that  she  could  not  endure  the  delight  of  it,  and 
also  wept.  Then  she  heard  a  large,  dark  shadow 
quietly  approach  her,  pick  up  her  shawl,  which  had 
slipped  to  the  floor,  and  wrap  it  about  her  feet. 

Ilovaiskaya  was  awakened  by  a  strange  sound  of 
bawling.  She  jumped  up  and  looked  about  her  in 
astonishment.  The  blue  light  of  dawn  was  already 
peeping  in  at  the  windows  which  were  almost  drifted 
over  with  snow.  A  grey  half-light  lay  in  the  room,  and 
in  it  the  stove,  the  sleeping  child,  and  Nasr-Ed-Din 
were  distinctly  visible.  The  stove  and  the  shrine  lamp 
had  gone  out.  Through  the  wide-open  door  could  be 
seen  the  large  tap-room  with  its  counter  and  tables. 
A  man  with  a  dull,  gipsy  face  and  wondering  eyes  was 
standing  in  the  middle  of  the  floor  in  a  pool  of  melted 
snow  and  was  holding  a  large  red  star  on  a  stick.  A 


228  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

throng  of  little  boys  surrounded  him,  motionless  as 
statues,  all  plastered  over  with  snow.  The  light  of  the 
star  shone  through  the  red  paper  and  shed  a  crimson 
glow  on  their  wet  faces.  The  little  crowd  was  bawling 
in  a  disorderly  fashion,  and  all  that  Ilovaiskaya  could 
distinguish  was  the  single  couplet: 

"Ho,  youngster,  you  tiny  one, 
Take  a  knife,  a  shiny  one 
We'll  kill,  we'll  kill  the  Jew, 
The  weary  son  of  rue " 

Likarieff  was  standing  near  the  counter  gazing  with 
emotion  at  the  singers  and  beating  time  with  his  foot. 
At  sight  of  Ilovaiskaya  a  smile  spread  over  his  whole 
face  and  he  went  up  to  her.  She,  too,  smiled. 

"Merry  Christmas!"  he  cried.  "I  saw  that  you 
were  sleeping  well." 

Ilovaiskaya  looked  at  him,  said  nothing,  and  con- 
tinued to  smile. 

After  then-  talk  of  last  night  he  no  longer  appeared 
tall  and  broad-shouldered  to  her,  but  small,  as  the 
largest  ship  appears  small  when  we  are  told  that  it  has 
crossed  the  ocean. 

"Well,  it  is  time  for  me  to  go,"  she  said.  "I  must 
put  on  my  things.  Tell  me,  where  are  you  going 
now?" 

"To  the  station  of  Klinushka;  from  there  I  shall  go 
to  Sergyevo,  and  from  Sergyevo  I  shall  drive  forty 
miles  to  some  coal-mines  belonging  to  an  old  fool  of  a 


ON  THE  WAY  229 

general  named  Shashkofski.  My  brothers  have  found 
me  a  place  there  as  manager.  I  am  going  to  mine 
coal." 

"Why,  I  know  those  coal-mines!  Shashkofski  is  my 
uncle.  But — why  are  you  going  there?"  asked  Ho- 
vaiskaya,  staring  at  Likarieff  in  astonishment. 

"To  be  manager.  I  am  going  to  manage  the  coal- 
mines." 

"I  don't  understand,"  said  Ilovaiskaya,  shrugging 
her  shoulders.  "You  are  going  to  the  mines.  But 
don't  you  know  that  they  lie  in  a  barren,  uninhabited 
waste?  It's  so  lonely  there  you  won't  be  able  to  stand 
it  a  day.  The  coal  is  horrible;  no  one  will  buy  it;  and 
my  uncle  is  a  maniac,  a  despot,  a  bankrupt — you  won't 
even  get  a  salary!" 

"Never  mind,"  said  Likarieff  indifferently.  "I'm 
thankful  even  for  the  mine." 

Ilovaiskaya  shrugged  her  shoulders  and  walked  ex- 
citedly up  and  down. 

"I  don't  understand;  I  don't  understand!"  she  cried, 
waving  her  fingers  in  front  of  her  face.  "It's  impos- 
sible and — and  senseless!  Oh,  understand  that  it's — 
it's  worse  than  exile ;  it's  a  living  tomb !  Oh,  Heavens ! " 
she  cried  hotly,  going  up  to  Likarieff  and  waving  her 
fingers  before  his  smiling  face.  Her  upper  lip  trembled 
and  her  piquant  face  paled.  "Oh,  imagine  that  barren 
plain,  that  solitude!  There  is  not  a  soul  there  with 
whom  to  speak  a  word,  and  you — have  an  enthusiasm 
for  women!  A  coal-mine  and  women!" 


230  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

Ilovaiskaya  suddenly  grew  ashamed  of  her  ardour 
and,  turning  away  from  Likarieff,  walked  across  to  the 
window. 

"No,  no,  you  mustn't  go  there!"  she  cried,  rapidly 
fingering  the  panes. 

She  felt  not  only  in  her  soul  but  even  in  her  back 
that  behind  her  stood  a  man  who  was  immeasurably 
unhappy  and  neglected  and  lost,  but  he  stood  looking 
at  her,  smiling  kindly,  as  if  he  did  not  realise  his  un- 
happiness,  as  if  he  had  not  wept  the  night  before.  It 
would  be  better  were  he  still  crying!  She  walked  back 
and  forth  across  the  room  several  times  in  agitation  and 
then  stopped  thoughtfully  in  a  corner.  Likarieff  was 
saying  something  but  she  did  not  hear  him.  She 
turned  her  back  to  him  and  drew  a  little  bill  from  her 
purse.  This  she  crushed  in  her  hands  for  a  long  time; 
then  she  glanced  round  at  Likarieff,  blushed,  and  thrust 
it  into  her  pocket. 

The  voice  of  the  coachman  was  now  heard  outside 
the  door.  Ilovaiskaya  began  to  put  on  her  things  with 
a  stern,  concentrated  expression  on  her  face.  Likarieff 
chatted  merrily  as  he  wrapped  her  up,  but  each  word 
of  his  fell  like  a  weight  on  her  heart.  It  is  not  gay  to 
hear  an  unhappy  or  dying  man  jest. 

When  the  transformation  of  a  living  being  into  a 
bundle  had  been  effected,  Ilovaiskaya  gave  one  last 
look  at  the  "visitors'  room,"  stood  silent  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  went  slowly  out.  Likarieff  followed  her  to 
see  her  off. 


ON  THE  WAY  231 

Out-of-doors,  Heaven  knows  for  what  purpose,  the 
winter  wind  was  still  raging. 

Whole  clouds  of  soft,  heavy  snow  were  whirling  rest- 
lessly along  the  ground,  unable  to  find  peace.  Horses, 
sleighs,  trees,  and  a  bull  tied  to  a  post — all  were  white 
and  looked  fluffy  and  soft. 

"Well,  God  bless  you — "  muttered  Likarieff,  seat- 
ing Ilovaiskaya  in  her  sleigh.  "Don't  think  ill  of 
me " 

Ilovaiskaya  was  silent.  As  the  sleigh  moved  away 
and  made  the  tour  of  a  huge  snow-drift  she  looked  round 
at  Likarieff  as  if  wishing  to  say  something.  He  ran 
toward  her,  but  she  said  not  a  word  and  only  glanced  at 
him  between  her  long  lashes,  on  which  hung  the  snow- 
flakes. 

Either  his  sensitive  soul  had  really  been  able  to  read 
the  meaning  of  this  glance  or  else  his  fancy  deceived 
him,  but  it  suddenly  seemed  to  him  that,  had  he  but 
added  two  or  three  more  good,  strong  strokes  to  the 
picture,  this  girl  would  have  forgiven  him  his  failure, 
his  age,  and  his  misfortune,  and  would  have  followed 
him  unquestioningly  and  unreasoningly.  He  stood 
there  for  a  long  time  as  if  in  a  trance,  staring  at  the 
track  left  by  the  runners  of  her  sleigh.  The  snowflakes 
settled  eagerly  on  his  hair,  on  his  beard,  on  his  shoulders 
— the  track  of  the  sleigh  soon  vanished  and  he  himself 
was  covered  with  snow;  he  began  to  resemble  a  white 
crag,  but  his  eyes  still  continued  to  search  for  something 
among  the  white  snow-clouds. 


THE  HEAD  GARDENER'S 
TALE 

A  SALE  of  flowers  was  taking  place  in  the  green- 
houses of  Count  N .  There  were  few  pur- 
chasers present;  only  a  young  timber  merchant,  a 
neighbouring  landowner  of  mine,  and  myself.  Whilst 
the  workmen  were  bearing  out  our  magnificent  pur- 
chases and  packing  them  into  wagons,  we  sat  in  the 
doorway  of  one  of  the  greenhouses  and  chatted  of  this 
and  that.  It  is  extremely  pleasant  to  sit  in  a  garden 
on  an  April  morning  listening  to  the  birds  and  looking 
at  the  flowers  which  have  been  carried  out  into  the  open 
air  and  are  basking  in  the  sunshine. 

The  gardener  himself  was  overseeing  the  packing  of 
our  plants.  It  was  Mikail  Karlovitch,  a  time-honoured 
old  man  with  a  clean-shaven  face,  wearing  a  fur  waist- 
coat and  no  coat.  He  was  not  saying  a  word  but  was 
keeping  one  ear  open  to  our  conversation,  thinking 
that  we  might  tell  some  bit  of  news.  He  was  an  intelli- 
gent, very  kind-hearted  man.  For  some  reason  people 
thought  him  a  German,  although  his  father  had  been  a 
Swede  and  his  mother  a  Russian  and  he  went  to  the 
Russian  church.  He  knew  Russian  and  German  and 
Swedish  and  read  a  great  deal  in  each  of  these  lan- 
guages, and  one  could  give  him  no  greater  pleasure  than 

232 


THE  HEAD  GARDENER'S  TALE       233 

to  let  him  have  a  new  book  to  read  or  to  talk  with  him 
about  Ibsen,  for  instance. 

He  had  his  failings,  but  they  were  all  harmless  ones. 
For  example,  he  always  spoke  of  himself  as  the  "head 
gardener,"  though  no  under  gardeners  existed;  the 
expression  of  his  face  was  singularly  haughty  and 
grave;  he  could  not  endure  contradiction  and  liked  to 
be  listened  to  seriously  and  attentively. 

"That  young  lad  over  there  is  a  fearful  rascal," 
said  my  neighbour,  pointing  to  a  dark,  gipsy-faced 
workman  driving  by  on  a  water  barrel.  "He  was  tried 
for  robbery  in  town  last  week  and  let  off.  He  was  pro- 
nounced mentally  unsound,  and  yet  look  at  him;  he 
seems  healthy  enough!  A  great  many  scoundrels  have 
been  acquitted  in  Russia  lately  on  the  plea  of  a  dis- 
eased condition,  and  the  effects  of  these  acquittals  and 
of  this  obvious  weakness  and  indulgence  cannot  but  be 
bad.  They  have  demoralised  the  masses;  the  sense 
of  justice  has  been  dulled  in  every  one,  for  we  have 
now  become  accustomed  to  seeing  crime  go  unpunished, 
and  we  can  say  boldly  of  our  times,  in  the  words  of 
Shakespeare: 

"'For  in  the  fatness  of  these  pursy  times 
Virtue  itself  of  vice  must  pardon  beg.' " 

"That  is  true,"  the  merchant  assented.  "Since  all 
these  pardons  have  been  granted  we  have  had  far 
more  crimes  of  murder  and  arson  than  formerly.  Ask 
the  peasants  if  that  isn't  so." 


234  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

The  gardener  Mikail  Karlovitch  turned  to  us  and 
said: 

"As  for  me,  sirs,  I  always  welcome  a  verdict  of 
acquittal  with  delight.  I  do  not  tremble  for  morality 
and  justice  when  a  man  is  declared  to  be  innocent;  on 
the  contrary,  I  experience  a  feeling  of  pleasure.  I  re- 
joice to  hear  it,  even  when  my  conscience  tells  me  that 
the  jury  have  made  a  mistake  in  acquitting  the  prisoner. 
Don't  you  think  yourselves,  sirs,  that  if  judges  and 
juries  had  more  faith  in  human  nature  than  in  speeches 
and  material  proofs  this  faith  might,  in  itself,  be  more 
important  than  any  worldly  considerations?  It  is  only 
attainable  by  the  few  who  know  and  feel  Christ." 

"The  idea  is  a  good  one,"  said  I. 

"The  idea  is  not  a  new  one.  I  even  remember  to 
have  heard  a  legend  long  ago  on  that  very  theme,  a 
very  pretty  legend,"  the  gardener  said,  smiling.  "It 
was  told  me  by  my  grandmother,  my  father's  mother, 
a  shrewd  old  woman.  She  told  it  in  Swedish;  it  would 
not  sound  so  beautiful,  so  classical,  in  Russian." 

But  we  begged  him  to  tell  it  and  never  mind  the 
harshness  of  the  Russian  tongue.  Delighted,  he  slowly 
finished  smoking  his  pipe,  glared  angrily  at  the  work- 
men, and  began: 

"A  homely,  middle-aged  man  once  came  to  live  in 
a  little  town.  His  name  was  Thomson  or  Wilson,  it 
matters  not  which;  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
story.  He  practised  a  noble  profession;  he  was  a  healer 
of  the  sick.  He  was  gruff  and  uncommunicative  always 


THE  HEAD  GARDENER'S  TALE       235 

and  only  spoke  when  his  profession  demanded  it;  he 
never  visited  anywhere  and  never  extended  his  ac- 
quaintance with  any  one  beyond  a  silent  nod  and  lived 
as  frugally  as  an  ascetic.  The  thing  is,  he  was  a  learned 
man,  and  in  those  days  learned  men  were  not  as  com- 
mon folk.  They  passed  their  days  and  nights  in  medi- 
tation, in  reading  books,  and  in  healing  the  sick;  every- 
thing else  they  looked  upon  as  trivial  and  they  had  no 
time  to  waste  in  words.  The  citizens  of  the  town  knew 
this  very  well  and  tried  not  to  bother  him  with  visits  and 
idle  gossip.  They  were  overjoyed  that  at  last  God  had 
sent  them  a  man  who  could  cure  their  sick  and  were 
proud  to  have  any  one  so  wonderful  living  in  their  town. 

"  'He  knows  everything!'  it  was  said  of  him. 

"But  that  was  not  enough;  they  should  also  have 
said:  'He  loves  every  one!'  A  marvellous,  angelic 
heart  beat  in  the  breast  of  this  learned  man.  After  all, 
the  inhabitants  of  the  town  were  but  strangers  to  him; 
they  were  not  his  kindred,  and  yet  he  loved  them  as 
though  they  had  been  his  children  and  did  not  even 
begrudge  them  his  life.  He  was  ill  himself  of  consump- 
tion, and  yet  when  he  was  summoned  to  a  sick-bed  he 
would  forget  his  own  illness  and,  without  sparing  him- 
self, would  climb  panting  up  the  mountains,  no  matter 
how  high  they  might  be.  He  braved  heat  and  cold  and 
scorned  hunger  and  thirst.  He  never  accepted  money, 
and  the  strange  thing  was  that  when  a  patient  died  he 
would  follow  the  body  weeping  to  the  grave  with  the 
kith  and  kin. 


236  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"He  soon  became  so  indispensable  that  the  citizens 
marvelled  that  they  had  been  able  to  exist  without  him. 
Their  gratitude  knew  no  bounds.  Old  and  young,  good 
and  bad,  honest  men  and  rogues — in  a  word,  all — 
honoured  him  and  recognised  his  worth.  There  was  not 
a  creature  in  the  town  and  its  vicinity  who  would  have 
permitted  himself  to  do  him  an  injury  or  even  to  en- 
tertain the  thought  of  it.  When  he  went  away  from 
home  he  used  to  leave  doors  and  windows  unbolted, 
in  perfect  certainty  that  no  thief  existed  who  could 
make  up  his  mind  to  do  him  a  wrong.  It  often  hap- 
pened that  his  duty  as  doctor  called  him  out  onto  the 
highroads  among  forests  and  mountains,  where  prowled 
many  hungry  vagrants,  but  he  felt  himself  perfectly 
safe.  One  night  when  he  was  on  his  way  home  from 
the  bedside  of  a  sick  man,  he  was  attacked  by  high- 
waymen in  a  forest,  but  when  they  recognised  him 
these  men  respectfully  took  off  their  caps  to  him  and 
asked  him  if  he  wouldn't  have  something  to  eat.  When 
he  told  them  he  was  not  hungry,  they  lent  him  a  warm 
cloak  and  escorted  him  to  the  very  town,  glad  that  fate 
had  given  them  an  opportunity  of  repaying  in  some 
way  the  goodness  of  this  great-hearted  man. 

"Well,  my  grandmother  would  go  on  to  say,  even 
the  horses  and  dogs  and  cows  knew  him  and  showed 
pleasure  on  seeing  him. 

"And  this  man,  who  seemed  to  be  safeguarded  by 
his  saintliness  from  every  evil  and  who  even  counted 
highwaymen  and  madmen  among  his  friends,  one 


THE  HEAD   GARDENER'S  TALE        237 

fine  morning  was  found  murdered.  He  lay,  all  blood- 
stained, at  the  bottom  of  a  ravine,  and  his  skull  was 
broken  in.  His  white  face  expressed  surprise.  Yes, 
surprise  and  not  horror  had  been  imprinted  on  his 
features  when  he  had  seen  his  murderer  before  him. 

"You  can  imagine  the  sorrow  that  now  overwhelmed 
the  town  and  all  the  countryside.  In  despair,  scarcely 
crediting  his  eyesight,  each  man  asked  himself:  'Who  j 
could  have  killed  this  man?'  The  judges  who  held  the 
inquest  on  the  body  of  the  doctor  said:  'We  have  here 
every  evidence  of  murder,  but,  as  there  is  no  man  in 
the  world  who  could  have  killed  our  doctor,  it  is  clear 
that  murder  could  not  have  been  committed  and  that 
this  combination  of  evidence  is  simply  a  coincidence. 
We  must  suppose  that  the  doctor  fell  over  the  edge  of 
the  cliff  in  the  dark  and  was  mortally  injured.' 

"The  whole  town  assented  in  this  opinion.  They 
buried  the  doctor,  and  no  one  any  more  talked  of  a 
death  by  violence.  The  existence  of  a  man  degraded 
enough  to  murder  the  doctor  seemed  unthinkable. 
There  is  a  limit  even  to  baseness,  isn't  there? 

"But — will  you  believe  it,  suddenly,  by  accident, 
the  murderer  was  discovered!  Some  scamp  who  had 
already  been  arrested  many  times  and  who  was  well 
known  for  his  vicious  life  offered  the  doctor's  snuff-box 
and  watch  in  exchange  for  a  drink  at  a  tavern.  When 
he  was  accused  of  the  crime  he  looked  taken  aback  and 
told  some  transparent  lie.  A  search  was  instituted,  and 
a  shirt  with  bloody  sleeves  and  a  doctor's  gold-mounted 


238  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

lancet  were  found  in  his  bed.  What  other  proofs  were 
needed?  The  wretch  was  thrown  into  prison.  The 
citizens  were  indignant,  but  at  the  same  time  they  said : 
'  It  is  unbelievable !  It  cannot  be !  Take  care  that  you 
make  no  mistake;  evidence  has  been  known  to  lie!' 

"At  his  trial  the  murderer  obstinately  denied  his 
guilt.  Everything  spoke  against  him,  and  it  was  as 
easy  to  believe  him  guilty  as  it  is  to  believe  that  earth 
is  black;  but  his  judges  seemed  to  have  gone  mad. 
They  weighed  each  bit  of  evidence  a  dozen  times,  kept 
looking  mistrustfully  at  the  witnesses,  flushing,  and 
drinking  water.  The  trial  began  early  one  morning  and 
lasted  until  late  that  night. 

"  'You  have  been  convicted!'  the  chief  justice  said, 
turning  toward  the  murderer.  'The  court  has  found 
you  guilty  of  the  murder  of  Doctor  So-and-So  and  has, 
therefore,  condemned  you  to 

"The  judge  wanted  to  say  'death,'  but  the  paper  on 
which  the  sentence  was  written  fell  from  his  hands;  he 
wiped  the  cold  sweat  from  his  brow  and  cried: 

"  'No!  May  God  punish  me  if  I  am  giving  an  unjust 
verdict!  I  swear  he  is  innocent.  I  cannot  tolerate  the 
idea  that  a  man  should  exist  who  would  dare  to  murder 
our  friend  the  doctor.  Man  is  not  capable  of  falling 
so  low.' 

"  'No,  there  is  no  man  capable  of  it,'  the  other 
judges  agreed. 

"  'No  one!'  echoed  the  crowd.    'Release  him!' 

"The  murderer  was  released,  and  not  one  single 


THE  HEAD  GARDENER'S  TALE       239 

soul  accused  the  court  of  giving  an  unjust  verdict. 
And,  my  grandmother  used  to  say,  for  their  faith  God 
forgave  the  sins  of  all  the  inhabitants  of  that  town. 
He  rejoices  when  people  believe  that  mankind  is  made 
in  his  likeness  and  image,  and  he  is  sad  when  they  for- 
get man's  worth  and  judge  him  more  harshly  than  they 
would  a  dog.  Even  if  that  acquittal  did  harm  to  the 
inhabitants  of  the  town,  think,  on  the  other  hand,  what 
a  beneficent  influence  their  faith  in  mankind  had  on 
those  people — a  faith  which  does  not  remain  inactive 
but  breeds  generous  thoughts  in  our  hearts  and  stimu- 
lates us  to  respect  every  man.  Every  man!" 

Mikail  Karlovitch  ended.  My  neighbour  wanted  to 
retort  something,  but  the  gardener  made  a  gesture, 
showing  that  he  did  not  like  to  be  answered  and  walked 
away  to  the  wagons,  where  he  once  more  applied  him- 
self to  packing  our  plants  with  an  expression  of  im- 
portance on  his  face. 


HUSH! 

IVAN  KRASNUKIN,  a  mediocre  newspaper  re- 
porter, always  comes  home  late  at  night  sombre, 
solemn,  and  somehow  tremendously  concentrated.  He 
looks  as  if  he  were  expecting  to  be  searched  or  were 
contemplating  suicide.  As  he  paces  up  and  down  his 
room  he  stops,  ruffles  his  hair,  and  says  in  the  tone  of 
Laertes  about  to  avenge  his  sister: 

"I  am  distracted;  I  am  weary  to  the  bottom  of  my 
soul;  sorrow  lies  heavy  on  my  heart;  and  yet  I  am 
expected  to  sit  down  and  write!  And  this  is  called 
'living'!  Why  has  no  writer  ever  described  the  tor- 
menting discords  which  harrow  an  author's  soul  when, 
being  sad,  he  must  provoke  the  crowd  to  mirth  and, 
being  merry,  he  must  shed  tears  as  he  is  bidden.  Yes, 
I  should  have  to  be  gay  and  unconcerned  and  witty 
even  though  I  were  bowed  down  with  grief,  even 
though  I  were,  let  us  say,  ill,  though  my  child  were 
dying,  though  my  wife  were  in  great  pain!" 

As  he  says  this  he  shakes  his  fist  and  rolls  his  eyes. 
Then  he  goes  into  the  bedroom  and  wakes  his  wife. 

"Nadia!"  he  says,  "I  am  going  to  begin  writing. 
Please  see  that  no  one  disturbs  me.  I  can't  write  if 
the  kids  are  bawling  or  the  cook  is  snoring.  And  see, 
MO 


HUSH  !  241 

too,  that  I  get  some  tea  and — and  a  beefsteak,  possibly. 
You  know  I  can't  write  unless  I  get  my  tea.  It  is  tea 
alone  that  gives  me  strength  for  my  work." 

Returning  to  his  own  room,  he  takes  off  his  coat,  his 
waistcoat,  and  his  boots.  He  undresses  with  delibera- 
tion, and  then,  composing  his  features  in  an  expression 
of  injured  innocence,  he  takes  his  seat  at  his  desk. 

On  that  desk  is  no  casual  object  of  every-day  life. 
Everything,  every  tiniest  trifle,  seems  to  be  charged  with 
meaning  and  to  be  carrying  out  some  stern  programme. 
Here  are  little  busts  and  pictures  of  famous  authors; 
here  are  a  pile  of  manuscript,  a  volume  of  Belinski's 
works  with  one  page  turned  down,  an  occipital  bone 
serving  as  an  inkstand,  a  page  from  some  newspaper 
carelessly  folded  but  exhibiting  a  column  marked  with 
blue  pencil  in  a  large  hand,  "Cowardly!"  Here,  too, 
lie  a  dozen  newly  sharpened  pencils  and  penholders 
with  fresh  pens,  so  that  no  external  cause  or  accident 
shall  interfere  for  a  moment  with  the  free  flight  of 
creative  fancy. 

Krasnukin  throws  himself  back  in  his  easy  chair  and 
plunges  into  the  consideration  of  a  subject.  He  hears 
his  wife  shuffling  about  in  slippers  as  she  splits  kindling 
for  the  samovar.  She  is  still  half  asleep,  as  he  can  tell, 
because  every  now  and  then  the  cover  or  a  leg  of  the 
samovar  drops  out  of  her  hands.  The  hissing  of  the 
samovar  and  of  the  frying  meat  soon  reaches  his  ears. 
His  wife  still  goes  on  splitting  wood  and  banging  about 
near  the  stove,  slamming  now  the  oven  door,  now  the 


242  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

damper,  and  now  the  door  of  the  fire-box.  Suddenly 
Krasnukin  shudders,  opens  his  eyes  wide  with  terror, 
and  begins  to  sniff  the  air. 

"Good  Lord!  Charcoal  fumes!"  he  gasps,  his  face 
contorted  with  agony.  "Charcoal  fumes!  That  in- 
sufferable woman  has  made  up  her  mind  to  suffocate 
me!  Tell  me,  for  Heaven's  sake,  how  can  I  possibly 
write  under  conditions  like  these?" 

He  flings  into  the  kitchen  and  breaks  into  tragic 
lamentations.  When  shortly  his  wife,  walking  on  tip- 
toe, brings  him  a  cup  of  tea  he  is  already  sitting  in  his 
armchair  as  he  was  before,  motionless,  immersed  in  his 
subject.  He  does  not  move,  drums  lightly  on  his  fore- 
head with  his  fingers,  and  pretends  not  to  notice  his 
wife's  presence.  His  face  again  takes  on  an  expression 
of  injured  innocence. 

Like  a  girl  to  whom  some  one  has  given  a  pretty  fan, 
before  writing  the  title  he  flirts  with  it  for  a  long  time, 
posing  and  coquetting  for  his  own  benefit.  Now  he 
presses  his  hands  to  his  temples,  now  he  shrinks  to- 
gether and  draws  up  his  feet  under  his  chair  as  if  he 
were  in  pain,  now  he  languidly  half  closes  his  eyes,  like 
a  cat  on  a  sofa.  At  last,  hesitatingly,  he  reaches  to- 
ward the  inkstand,  and  with  the  air  of  signing  a  death- 
warrant  he  writes  down  the  title 

"Mamma,  I  want  some  water!"  he  hears  his  son's 
voice  cry. 

"Hush!"  says  the  mother.  "Papa  is  writing. 
Hush!" 


HUSH  !  243 

Papa  is  writing  quickly,  quickly,  never  stopping, 
never  cancelling  a  word,  hardly  finding  time  to  turn  the 
pages.  The  busts  and  portraits  of  the  famous  authors 
watch  his  swiftly  flying  pen  and  seem  to  think:  "Aha, 
brother!  Go  for  it!" 

"Hush!"  scratches  the  pen. 

"Hush!"  rattle  the  authors,  shaken  on  the  table  by  a* 
push  from  the  writer's  knee. 

Krasnukin  suddenly  draws  himself  up,  lays  down 
his  pen,  and  listens.  He  hears  an  even,  monotonous 
whispering.  It  is  Foma  Nikolaitch,  the  boarder,  say- 
ing his  prayers  in  the  next  room. 

"Look  here!"  calls  out  Krasnukin.  "Can't  you 
pray  more  quietly?  You  keep  me  from  writing." 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  answers  Foma  Nikolaitch 
timidly. 

"Hush!" 

Having  written  five  pages,  Krasnukin  stretches  him- 
self and  looks  at  the  clock. 

"Heavens!  Three  o'clock  already,"  he  groans. 
"Every  one  is  asleep;  only  I,  I  alone  must  work!" 

Broken  down,  exhausted,  his  head  hanging  to  one 
side,  he  goes  into  the  bedroom  and  wakes  his  wife. 

"Nadia,  give  me  some  more  tea!"  he  says  in  a  weary 
voice.  "I'm — I'm  feeling  weak." 

He  writes  until  four  and  would  like  to  go  on  until 
six,  but  he  has  exhausted  his  subject.  His  coquetting 
and  showing  off  before  inanimate  objects,  where  he  is 
far  from  prying,  indiscreet  eyes,  his  despotism  and 


244  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

tyranny  in  the  little  ant's  nest  over  which  fate  has  given 
him  authority,  these  are  for  him  the  spice  of  life.  How 
little  this  despot  at  home  resembles  the  puny,  humble, 
speechless,  incapable  beings  we  are  in  the  habit  of  see- 
ing in  the  offices  of  newspapers! 

"I  am  so  tired  that  I  don't  think  I  shall  be  able  to 
sleep,"  he  says  as  he  goes  to  bed.  "Our  work,  this  in- 
fernal, thankless  drudgery  of  a  galley-slave,  does  not 
tire  the  body  so  much  as  the  mind.  I  must  take  some 
drops  of  bromide.  Ah,  Heaven  knows,  if  it  weren't 
for  my  family  I'd  throw  over  the  whole  thing!  Oh, 
'tis  awful  to  have  to  write  to  order  like  this." 

He  falls  into  a  profound  and  wholesome  slumber 
and  sleeps  until  one  or  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 
Ah,  how  much  longer  he  would  have  slept,  what  dreams 
he  would  have  dreamed,  had  he  been  a  famous  author, 
or  an  editor,  or  even  a  publisher! 

"He  was  writing  all  night,"  whispers  his  wife  with 
a  frightened  face.  "Hush!" 

No  one  dares  speak  or  walk  or  make  a  sound.  His 
sleep  is  sacred,  and  whoever  is  guilty  of  disturbing  it 
will  have  to  pay  dearly. 

"  Hush ! "  is  wafted  through  all  the  rooms.     "  Hush ! " 


WITHOUT  A  TITLE 

IN  the  fifteenth  century,  as. now,  the  sun  rose  every 
morning  and  sank  to  rest  every  night.  When  its 
first  rays  kissed  the  dew  the  earth  awoke  and  the  air 
was  filled  with  sounds  of  joy,  ecstasy,  and  hope;  at 
eventide  the  same  earth  grew  still  and  sank  into  dark- 
ness. Sometimes  a  thunder-cloud  would  roll  up  and 
the  thunder  roar  angrily,  or  a  sleepy  star  drop  from 
heaven,  or  a  pale  monk  come  running  in  to  tell  the 
brothers  that  he  had  seen  a  tiger  not  far  from  the  mon- 
astery— and  that  was  all.  Then  once  again  day  would 
resemble  day,  and  night  night. 

The  monks  worked  and  prayed,  and  their  old  prior 
played  the  organ,  composed  Latin  verses,  and  wrote 
out  music.  This  fine  old  man  had  a  remarkable  talent; 
he  played  the  organ  with  such  skill  that  even  the  most 
ancient  of  the  monks,  whose  hearing  had  grown  feeble 
as  the  end  of  their  lives  drew  near,  could  not  restrain 
their  tears  when  the  notes  of  his  organ  came  floating 
from  his  cell.  When  he  spoke,  even  if  it  were  only  of 
the  commonest  things,  such  as  trees,  wild  beasts,  or  the 
sea,  no  one  could  listen  to  him  without  either  a  smile 
or  a  tear;  the  same  notes  seemed  to  vibrate  in  his  soul 
that  vibrated  in  the  organ.  When  he  was  moved  by 
245 


246  STORIES  OP  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

wrath  or  great  joy,  when  he  spoke  of  things  that  were 
terrible  and  grand,  a  passionate  inspiration  would 
master  him,  tears  would  start  from  his  flashing  eyes, 
his  face  would  flush,  his  voice  peal  like  thunder,  and 
the  listening  monks  would  feel  their  souls  wrung  by  his 
exaltation.  During  these  splendid,  these  marvellous 
moments  his  power  was  unlimited;  if  he  had  ordered 
his  elders  to  throw  themselves  into  the  sea  they  would 
all  have  rushed  rapturously,  with  one  accord,  to  fulfil 
his  desire. 

His  music,  his  voice,  and  the  verses  with  which  he 
praised  God  were  a  source  of  never-ending  joy  to  the 
monks.  Sometimes  in  their  monotonous  lives  the 
trees,  the  flowers,  the  spring  and  autumn  grew  tire- 
some, the  noise  of  the  sea  wearied  them,  and  the  songs 
of  the  birds  grew  unpleasing,  but  the  talents  of  their 
old  prior,  like  bread,  they  needed  every  day. 

A  score  of  years  passed.  Day  resembled  day,  and 
night  night.  Not  a  living  creature  showed  itself  near 
the  monastery  except  wild  beasts  and  birds.  The  near- 
est human  habitation  was  far  away,  and  to  reach  it 
from  the  monastery  or  to  reach  the  monastery  from 
there  one  had  to  cross  a  desert  one  hundred  miles  wide. 
This  only  those  dared  to  do  who  set  no  value  on  life, 
who  had  renounced  it,  and  journeyed  to  the  monastery 
as  to  a  tomb. 

What,  then,  was  the  surprise  of  the  monks  when  one 
night  a  man  knocked  at  their  gates  who  proved  to  be 
an  inhabitant  of  the  city,  the  most  ordinary  of  sinners, 


WITHOUT  A  TITLE  247 

with  a  love  of  life!  Before  saying  a  prayer  or  asking 
the  blessing  of  the  prior  this  man  demanded  food  and 
wine.  When  they  asked  him  how  he  had  got  into  the 
desert  from  the  city  he  answered  them  by  telling  a  long 
hunter's  tale;  he  had  gone  hunting,  and  had  had  too 
much  to  drink,  and  had  lost  his  way.  To  the  sugges- 
tion that  he  should  become  a  monk  and  save  his  soul 
he  replied  with  a  smile  and  the  words:  "I  am  no  friend 
of  yours. " 

Having  eaten  and  drunk  his  fill,  he  looked  long  at  the 
monks  who  were  serving  him,  reproachfully  shook  his 
head,  and  said: 

"You  don't  do  anything,  you  monks.  All  you  care 
about  is  your  victuals  and  drink.  Is  that  the  way  to 
save  your  souls?  Think  now:  while  you  are  living 
quietly  here,  eating,  drinking,  and  dreaming  of  bless- 
edness, your  fellow  men  are  being  lost  and  damned  to 
hell.  Look  what  goes  on  in  the  city!  Some  die  of 
starvation,  while  others,  not  knowing  what  to  do  with 
their  gold,  plunge  into  debauchery  and  perish  like  flies 
in  honey.  There  is  no  faith  nor  truth  among  men. 
Whose  duty  is  it  to  save  them?  Is  it  mine,  who  am 
drunk  from  morning  till  night?  Did  God  give  you  faith 
and  loving  and  humble  hearts  that  you  should  sit  here 
between  your  four  walls  and  do  nothing?" 

The  drunken  speech  of  the  townsman  was  insolent 
and  unseemly,  yet  it  strangely  affected  the  prior.  The 
old  man  and  his  monks  looked  at  each  other;  then  he 
paled  and  said: 


248  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"Brothers,  he  is  right!  It  is  true  that,  owing  to 
folly  and  weakness,  unfortunate  mankind  is  perishing 
in  unbelief  and  sin,  and  we  do  not  move  from  the  spot, 
as  if  it  were  no  business  of  ours.  Why  should  I  not  go 
and  remind  them  of  the  Christ  whom  they  have  for- 
gotten?" 

The  old  man  was  transported  by  the  words  of  the 
townsman.  On  the  following  day  he  grasped  his  staff, 
bade  farewell  to  the  brothers,  and  set  out  for  the  city. 
So  the  monks  were  left  without  music,  without  his 
words  and  his  verses. 

They  waited  first  one  month  and  then  two,  and  still 
the  old  man  did  not  return.  At  last,  at  the  end  of  the 
third  month,  they  heard  the  familiar  tapping  of  his 
staff.  The  monks  flew  out  to  meet  him  and  showered 
him  with  questions;  but,  instead  of  rejoicing  with  them, 
he  wept  bitterly  and  did  not  utter  a  word.  The  monks 
saw  that  he  was  thin  and  had  aged  greatly  and  that 
weariness  and  profound  sorrow  were  depicted  on  his 
face.  When  he  wept  he  had  the  look  of  a  man  who 
had  been  deeply  hurt. 

Then  the  monks,  too,  burst  into  tears  and  asked  why 
he  was  weeping  and  why  his  face  looked  so  stern,  but 
he  answered  not  a  word  and  went  and  locked  himself 
in  his  cell.  For  five  days  he  stayed  there  and  neither 
ate  nor  drank,  neither  did  he  play  the  organ.  When  the 
monks  knocked  at  his  door  and  entreated  him  to  come 
out  and  share  his  sorrow  with  them  his  answer  was  a 
profound  silence. 


WITHOUT  A  TITLE  249 

At  last  he  emerged.  Collecting  all  the  monks  about 
him,  with  a  face  swollen  with  weeping  and  with  many 
expressions  of  indignation  and  distress,  he  began  to 
tell  them  all  that  had  happened  to  him  during  the  past 
three  months.  His  voice  was  calm  and  his  eyes  smiled 
as  he  described  his  journey  from  the  monastery  to  the 
city.  Birds  had  sung  and  brooks  babbled  to  him  by 
the  wayside,  he  said,  and  sweet,  new-born  hopes  had 
agitated  his  breast.  He  felt  that  he  was  a  soldier  ad- 
vancing to  battle  and  certain  victory,  he  walked  along 
dreaming,  composing  hymns  and  verses  as  he  went, 
and  was  surprised  when  he  found  that  he  had  reached 
his  journey's  end. 

But  his  voice  trembled,  his  eyes  flashed,  and  anger 
burned  hot  within  him  when  he  began  to  tell  of  the 
city  and  of  mankind.  Never  before  had  he  seen  or 
dared  to  imagine  what  he  encountered  when  he  entered 
the  town.  Here,  in  his  old  age,  he  saw  and  understood 
for  the  first  time  in  his  life  the  might  of  Satan,  the 
splendour  of  iniquity,  and  the  weakness  and  despicable 
faint-heartedness  of  mankind.  By  an  evil  chance,  the 
first  house  he  entered  was  an  abode  of  sin.  Here  half  a 
hundred  men  with  a  great  deal  of  money  were  feasting 
and  drinking  wine  without  end.  Overpowered  by  its 
fumes,  they  were  singing  songs  and  boldly  saying  things 
so  shocking  and  terrible  that  no  God-fearing  man 
would  dare  to  mention  them.  They  were  unboundedly 
free  and  happy  and  bold;  they  feared  neither  God  nor 
the  devil  nor  death,  did  and  said  whatever  they  had 


250  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

a  mind  to,  and  went  wherever  they  were  driven  by 
their  desires.  The  wine,  clear  as  amber,  was  surely 
intolerably  fragrant  and  delicious,  for  every  one  who 
quaffed  it  smiled  rapturously  and  straightway  desired 
to  drink  again.  It  returned  smile  for  smile  and  spar- 
kled joyfully,  as  if  it  knew  what  fiendish  seduction  lay 
hidden  in  its  sweetness. 

More  than  ever  weeping  and  burning  with  anger,  the 
old  man  went  on  describing  what  he  had  seen.  On 
the  table  in  the  midst  of  the  feasters,  he  said,  stood 
a  half -naked  woman.  It  would  be  hard  kto  imagine 
anything  more  glorious  and  enchanting  than  she  was. 
Young,  long-haired,  with  dark  eyes  and  thick  lips,  in- 
solent and  shameless,  this  vermin  smiled,  showing  her 
teeth  as  white  as  snow,  as  if  saying:  "Behold  how 
beautiful,  how  insolent  I  am!"  Splendid  draperies  of 
silk  and  brocade  fell  from  her  shoulders,  but  her  beauty 
would  not  be  hidden  beneath  a  garment  and  eagerly 
made  its  way  through  the  folds,  as  young  verdure  forces 
itself  through  the  earth  in  the  springtime.  The  shame- 
less woman  drank  wine,  sang  songs,  and  surrendered 
herself  to  the  feasters. 

Wrathfully  brandishing  his  arms,  the  old  man  went 
on  to  describe  hippodromes,  bull-fights,  theatres,  and 
the  workshops  of  artists,  where  the  forms  of  naked 
women  were  painted  and  modelled  in  clay.  He  spoke 
eloquently,  sonorously,  with  inspiration,  as  if  he  were 
playing  on  some  invisible  instrument,  and  the  stupefied 
monks  eagerly  hung  on  his  words  and  punted  with 


WITHOUT  A  TITLE  251 

ecstasy.  Having  described  all  the  charms  of  the  devil, 
the  beauty  of  wickedness,  and  the  enchanting  grace  of 
the  infamous  female  form,  the  old  man  cursed  Satan, 
turned  on  his  heel,  and  vanished  behind  his  door. 

When  he  came  out  of  his  cell  next  morning  not  a 
monk  remained  in  the  monastery.  They  were  all  on 
their  way  to  the  city. 


IN  THE  RAVINE 


THE  village  of  Ukleyevo  lay  in  a  ravine,  so  that 
only  the  church  steeple  and  the  chimneys  of  its 
cotton-printing  mills  could  be  seen  from  the  highroad 
and  from  the  railway  station.  If  a  traveller  inquired 
what  village  that  was,  he  was  told: 

"That  is  the  village  where  the  deacon  ate  all  the 
caviare  at  the  funeral." 

That  is  to  say  that,  at  a  wake  at  the  manufacturer 
Kostiukoff's,  a  grey-beard  deacon  had  caught  sight  of 
some  fresh  caviare  among  the  other  delicacies  on  the 
table  and  had  fallen  greedily  upon  it.  They  had  nudged 
him  and  pulled  his  sleeve,  but  he  seemed  to  have 
fallen  into  a  trance  of  delight,  for  he  felt  nothing  and 
only  went  on  eating.  He  ate  all  the  caviare,  and  there 
had  been  four  pounds  of  it  in  the  jar!  Long  after- 
ward, though  the  deacon  had  been  dead  many  years, 
that  episode  of  the  caviare  was  still  remembered.  Was 
life  so  meagre  in  the  village  or  were  its  people  unable 
to  notice  anything  beyond  an  unimportant  event  which 
had  happened  ten  years  ago?  Who  can  say?  At  any 
rate,  no  other  fact  was  ever  related  about  Ukleyevo. 

252 


IN  THE  RAVINE  253 

Fever  was  always  rampant  in  the  village  and  the 
mud  was  always  deep,  even  in  summer,  especially  near 
the  fences,  which  were  overhung  by  ancient  willow- 
trees  that  cast  broad  shadows  across  the  roads.  The 
air  always  smelled  of  refuse  from  the  factories  and  of  the 
vinegar  which  was  used  in  dyeing  the  calico.  The  fac- 
tories— there  were  four  of  them,  three  cotton-mills  and 
one  tannery — lay  not  in  the  village  itself  but  at  some 
distance  away,  on  its  outskirts.  They  were  small  fac- 
tories; not  more  than  four  hundred  men  worked  in  all 
four.  The  water  in  the  river  often  stank  of  the  tan- 
nery; its  refuse  infected  the  meadows,  and  then  the 
stock  of  the  peasants  would  suffer  from  the  plague. 
When  this  was  the  case  the  tannery  was  ordered  to  be 
closed.  It  was  officially  closed,  but  went  on  working 
in  secret,  with  the  connivance  of  the  commissary  of  the 
rural  police  and  of  the  district  doctor,  to  each  of  whom 
the  owner  paid  ten  roubles  a  month.  There  were  only 
two  fair-sized  brick  houses  with  tin  roofs  in  the  whole 
village.  One  was  occupied  by  the  district  administra- 
tion, and  in  the  other,  which  was  of  two  stories  and 
stood  directly  opposite  the  church,  lived  the  merchant, 
Gregory  Tsibukin. 

Gregory  kept  a  small  grocery  store,  but  this  was  only 
for  the  sake  of  appearances;  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he 
trafficked  in  vodka,  cattle,  hides,  grain,  hogs,  and  what- 
ever came  handy.  For  instance,  when  magpies  were 
wanted  abroad  to  trim  ladies'  hats  he  made  a  profit 
of  thirty  copecks  a  pair  on  the  birds.  He  bought 


254  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

standing  timber,  lent  money  at  interest;  on  the  whole, 
he  was  a  shrewd  old  man. 

He  had  two  sons.  The  elder,  Anasim,  was  a  de- 
tective and  was  seldom  at  home.  The  younger  son, 
Stephen,  had  gone  into  trade  and  now  worked  for  his 
father,  but  no  real  assistance  was  expected  from  him,  as 
his  health  was  bad  and  he  was  deaf.  Stephen's  wife, 
Aksinia,  was  a  handsome,  shapely  woman  who  went 
to  church  on  holidays  wearing  a  hat  and  carrying  a 
parasol;  she  rose  early  and  went  to  bed  late,  and  was 
on  the  run  all  day  long,  with  her  skirts  tucked  up  and 
her  keys  jangling,  from  the  warehouse  to  the  cellar 
and  from  the  cellar  to  the  store.  Old  Tsibukin  would 
watch  her  gaily,  with  kindling  eyes,  and  at  such  times 
he  used  to  wish  that  his  elder  son  had  been  married 
to  her  instead  of  his  younger  one,  who  was  deaf  and 
was  obviously  no  judge  of  feminine  beauty. 

The  old  man  had  always  had  a  great  fondness  for 
domestic  life  and  he  loved  his  family  more  than  any- 
thing else  in  the  world,  especially  his  elder  son,  the  de- 
tective, and  his  daughter-in-law.  Aksinia  had  no 
sooner  married  the  deaf  boy  than  she  gave  evidence  of 
uncommon  executive  power.  She  knew  at  once  to 
whom  she  could  give  credit  and  to  whom  she  could  not; 
she  kept  all  the  keys  herself,  not  even  intrusting  them 
to  her  husband;  she  rattled  away  at  the  counting 
board;  she  looked  in  the  horses'  mouths  like  a  peasant; 
and  was  always  laughing  and  shouting.  The  old  man 
was  touched  by  whatever  she  did  and  said  and  would 


IN  THE  RAVINE  255 

mutter  when  he  saw  her:  "Go  it,  little  bride!  Go  it, 
pretty  daughter!" 

He  was  a  widower,  but,  after  his  son  had  been  mar- 
ried a  year,  he  could  endure  it  no  longer  and  was 
married  himself.  A  bride  was  found  for  him  thirty 
miles  from  the  village,  Varvara  by  name,  who,  though 
no  longer  young,  was  pretty  and  striking. 

No  sooner  had  she  moved  into  her  little  room  at  the 
top  of  the  house  than  the  whole  building  seemed  to 
be  lighter,  as  if  new  panes  had  been  let  into  the  win- 
dows. Shrine  lamps  were  lighted,  tables  were  covered 
with  table-cloths  white  as  snow,  little  red  flowers  ap- 
peared in  the  windows,  and  at  dinner  they  no  longer 
all  ate  out  of  one  dish;  each  person  had  a  plate  of  his 
own.  Varvara's  smile  was  gentle  and  pleasant  and 
everything  in  the  house  seemed  to  smile  with  her. 
Beggars,  wanderers,  and  pilgrims  began  to  appear  in 
the  courtyard,  a  thing  which  had  never  happened  be- 
fore; the  plaintive,  singsong  voices  of  the  village  peas- 
ant women  were  heard  under  the  windows,  mingled 
with  the  feeble  coughing  of  weak,  lean  peasants  who 
had  been  discharged  from  the  factories  for  intemper- 
ance. Varvara  helped  them  with  money  and  bread 
and  old  clothes  and  later,  when  she  grew  to  feel 
more  at  home  in  the  house,  began  to  give  them  things 
out  of  the  store.  The  deaf  boy  once  saw  her  car- 
rying away  two  little  packets  of  tea  and  this  confused 
him. 

"Mamma  has  just  taken  two  packets  of  tea,"  he  an- 


256  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

nounced  to  his  father  later.  "To  whom  shall  I  charge 
them?" 

The  old  man  said  not  a  word,  but  stood  and  medi- 
tated, working  his  eyebrows,  and  then  went  up-stairs  to 
his  wife. 

"  Varvara,  child,"  he  said  tenderly,  "if  you  need  any- 
thing in  the  store,  help  yourself.  Take  all  you  want 
and  don't  hesitate." 

Next  day  the  deaf  boy  called  up  to  her  as  he  ran 
across  the  courtyard: 

"If  you  need  anything,  mamma,  help  yourself!" 

There  was  something  new  in  this  almsgiving  of  hers, 
something  cheerful  and  free,  as  there  was  in  the  shrine 
lamps  and  the  red  flowers.  They  felt  this  influence  when 
they  sold  out  their  salt  meat  to  the  peasants  on  the 
eve  of  a  fast,  meat  smelling  so  strong  that  one  couldn't 
stand  near  the  barrel.  They  felt  it  when  they  took 
scythes  and  caps  and  women's  dresses  in  pawn  from 
drunken  men;  and  when  the  factory  workmen  rolled  in 
the  mud,  stupefied  by  bad  vodka;  and  when  evil  seemed 
to  have  condensed  and  to  be  hanging  in  the  air  like 
a  fog,  they  felt  somehow  more  at  ease  at  the  thought 
that  there,  in  the  house,  was  a  neat,  gentle  woman  who 
had  nothing  to  do  with  salt  meat  and  vodka.  During 
these  painful  and  gloomy  days  her  charity  was  for 
them  what  a  safety-valve  is  for  an  engine. 

The  days  in  Tsibukin's  house  were  spent  in  toil.  Be- 
fore the  sun  was  up  Aksinia  was  snorting  as  she  washed 
her  face  in  an  outhouse;  the  samovar  was  boiling  in  the 


IN  THE  RAVINE  257 

kitchen  and  droning  as  if  foretelling  disaster.  Old 
Gregory,  dressed  in  a  long  black  coat,  calico  trousers, 
and  shiny  high  boots,  clean  and  small,  was  bustling 
about  the  rooms  tapping  on  the  floor  with  his  heels  like 
the  old  father-in-law  in  the  song.  At  daybreak  a  rac- 
ing cart  was  brought  to  the  door  and  the  old  man 
jumped  bravely  in  and  pulled  his  great  cap  down  over 
his  ears,  and  no  one  seeing  him  then  would  believe  that 
he  was  already  fifty-six.  His  wife  and  daughter-in- 
law  came  to  see  him  off,  and  when  he  had  on  his  long, 
clean  coat  and  was  driving  his  huge  black  stallion  that 
had  cost  three  hundred  roubles  the  old  man  did  not 
like  to  be  approached  by  peasants  with  petitions  and 
complaints.  He  hated  and  despised  peasants  and  if 
one  of  them  was  waiting  for  him  at  the  gate  would 
shout  angrily: 

"What  are  you  standing  there  for?     Move  on!" 

Or,  if  it  was  a  beggar,  he  would  cry: 

"No;  God  will  help  you!" 

So  he  drove  away  every  morning  on  business,  and 
his  wife,  in  a  dark  dress  with  a  black  kerchief  over  her 
hair,  put  the  rooms  in  order  and  helped  in  the  kitchen. 
Aksinia  kept  the  store,  and  her  laughter  and  shout- 
ing and  the  clashing  of  bottles  and  jingling  of  money 
could  be  heard  in  the  courtyard,  as  well  as  the  angry 
cries  of  the  customers  she  had  cheated.  At  the  same 
time  it  was  evident  that  a  stealthy  trade  in  vodka  was 
being  carried  on  in  the  store.  The  deaf  boy  sat  in 
the  store  or  else  walked  about  the  streets  without  a 


258  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

hat,  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  gazing  now  at  the  huts, 
now  up  at  the  sky.  Tea  was  drunk  six  times  a  day 
in  the  house,  and  they  sat  down  to  four  meals.  In 
the  evening  they  counted  up  the  day's  profits  and 
then  went  soundly  to  sleep. 

The  three  factories  in  Ukleyevo,  that  of  the  Elder 
Hrimins,  that  of  Hrimin's  Sons,  and  that  of  Kostiukoff , 
were  connected  by  telephone  with  the  houses  of  their 
owners.  A  telephone  had  also  been  installed  in  the 
office  of  the  administration,  but  here  it  soon  fell  out 
of  repair,  for  bedbugs  and  cockroaches  began  to  breed 
in  it.  The  head  of  the  district  was  illiterate  and  wrote 
entirely  in  capital  letters,  but  he  said  after  the  telephone 
had  been  destroyed: 

"Yes,  it  will  be  a  little  hard  for  us  now  to  manage 
without  a  telephone." 

The  Elder  Hrimins  and  Hrimin's  Sons  were  in  con- 
stant litigation,  and  sometimes  the  sons  quarrelled 
among  themselves  and  went  to  law,  and  then  their  fac- 
tory would  close  down  for  a  month  or  two,  until  they 
had  made  their  peace  again.  This  amused  the  inhab- 
itants of  Ukleyevo,  as  there  was  always  much  gossip 
and  talk  about  the  ground  for  each  quarrel.  On  holi- 
days Kostiukoff  and  Hrimin's  Sons  would  go  driving 
and  fly  galloping  about  Ukleyevo,  running  down  the 
calves.  Aksinia,  decked  out  in  her  best  and  rustling 
her  starched  skirts,  would  stroll  up  and  down  the  street 
near  her  store,  and  Hrimin's  Sons  would  catch  her  up 
and  bear  her  away  as  if  by  force.  Old  Tsibukin,  too, 


IN  THE  RAVINE  259 

would  go  driving  then,  to  show  off  his  new  horse,  and 
would  take  Varvara  with  him. 

In  the  evening,  after  the  drive,  when  the  others  had 
gone  to  bed,  the  notes  of  an  expensive  accordion  could 
be  heard  coming  from  the  courtyard  of  Hrimin's  Sons; 
and  then,  if  the  moon  was  shining,  a  flutter  of  happi- 
ness would  stir  the  heart  at  the  sound  and  Ukleyevo 
would  no  longer  seem  such  a  hole. 

II 

The  elder  son,  Anasim,  seldom  came  home,  but  he 
often  sent  back  gifts  and  letters  by  his  fellow  villagers. 
These  letters  were  indited  in  a  very  beautiful,  unknown 
hand  and  were  always  written  on  a  sheet  of  writing- 
paper,  like  a  petition.  They  were  full  of  expressions 
which  Anasim  never  used  in  speaking,  such  as:  "Kind 
Mother  and  Father:  I  am  sending  you  a  pound  of  the 
flowers  of  tea  for  the  satisfaction  of  your  physical  re- 
quirements." At  the  end  of  each  letter  was  scratched 
as  if  with  a  very  bad  pen,  "Anasim  Tsibukin,"  and  be- 
low this  again,  in  the  superb  handwriting,  "Agent." 

These  letters  were  always  read  aloud  several  times, 
and  the  old  man  would  say,  agitated  and  flushed  with 
excitement: 

"He  wouldn't  live  at  home;  he  wanted  an  education. 
Let  him  have  it!  Every  Jack  to  his  trade!" 

One  day  just  before  Shrove  Tuesday  a  heavy  rain 
was  falling.  The  old  man  and  Varvara  had  gone  to 


260  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

the  window  to  watch  it,  when,  behold!  there  came 
Anasim  driving  up  in  a  sleigh  from  the  station.  He 
had  arrived  quite  unexpectedly,  and  as  he  entered  the 
room  he  looked  anxious  and  alarmed,  and  so  he  re- 
mained for  the  rest  of  his  visit,  with  always  something 
reckless  in  his  behaviour.  He  was  in  no  hurry  to  take 
his  departure  and  acted  as  if  he  had  been  discharged 
from  the  service.  Varvara  was  glad  of  his  coming; 
she  kept  looking  at  him  almost  slyly  and  shaking  her 
head. 

"How  is  this?"  she  said.  "Here's  the  lad  already 
twenty-eight,  and  still  playing  about  as  a  bachelor. 
Oh,  tut,  tut!" 

From  the  adjoining  room  her  quiet,  even  speech 
could  be  heard:  "Oh,  tut,  tut!"  She  fell  to  whispering 
with  the  old  man  and  Aksinia,  and  their  faces,  too, 
took  on  a  sly,  mysterious  expression,  as  if  they  had 
been  conspirators. 

They  decided  to  get  Anasim  married. 

"Oh,  tut,  tut!  Your  younger  brother  has  been  mar- 
ried a  long  time,"  said  Varvara,  "and  you  are  with- 
out a  mate  still,  like  a  cock  at  a  fair!  Why  is  this? 
You  must  marry,  and  then  you  can  go  back  to  your 
work,  and  your  wife  will  stay  here  and  help  us.  Your 
life  is  disorderly,  lad;  I  see  you  have  forgotten  the  rules. 
Oh,  tut,  tut!  You  city  folks  are  a  burden!" 

When  the  Tsibukins  married,  the  prettiest  girls  were 
always  picked  out  to  be  their  brides,  for  they  were  rich 
people.  And  so,  for  Anasim  likewise,  a  pretty  girl 


IN  THE  RAVINE  261 

was  chosen.  He  himself  possessed  an  unattractive  and 
insignificant  exterior.  With  a  weak  constitution  and  a 
small  stature,  he  had  fat,  puffy  cheeks  that  looked  as 
if  he  were  blowing  them  out;  his  eyes  were  unwinking, 
his  glance  was  keen,  his  beard  was  sparse  and  red,  and 
he  had  a  habit  of  taking  it  into  his  mouth  and  biting  it 
when  he  was  thinking.  In  addition  to  this  he  drank, 
and  this  could  be  seen  from  his  face  and  his  walk.  But 
when  they  told  him  that  they  had  found  him  a  bride, 
and  a  very  pretty  one,  he  said: 

"Well,  I'm  no  hunchback  myself.  I  must  say,  all 
we  Tsibukins  are  good-looking." 

In  the  shadow  of  the  city  lay  the  village  of  Tor- 
guyevo.  Half  of  it  had  lately  been  absorbed  by  the 
town,  the  other  half  still  remained  a  village.  In  a 
little  house  in  the  first  half  lived  a  widow,  and  with  her 
lived  her  sister  who  was  penniless  and  went  out  to  do 
charwork  by  the  day.  This  sister  had  a  daughter 
named  Lipa,  a  girl  who  also  did  charwork.  Lipa's 
beauty  was  already  talked  of  in  the  village,  but  her 
appalling  penury  dismayed  people;  they  reasoned  that 
some  widower  or  elderly  man  would  marry  her  in  spite 
of  her  poverty,  or  else  would  take  her  to  live  with  him 
"s.o,"  and  in  that  way  her  mother  would  also  be  pro- 
vided for.  Varvara  heard  of  Lipa  from  the  professional 
matchmakers  and  drove  to  Torguyevo. 

After  this  a  visit  of  the  bridegroom  to  the  bride  was 
arranged  in  the  house  of  the  girl's  aunt,  and  at  this 
entertainment  wine  and  delicacies  were  served,  as  was 


262  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

proper.  Lipa  was  dressed  in  a  new  pink  frock  made 
especially  for  the  occasion  and  a  poppy-red  ribbon 
flamed  in  her  hair.  She  was  slight  and  frail  and  fair, 
with  delicate,  gentle  features  tanned  by  labour  out-of- 
doors.  There  was  ever  a  wistful,  timid  smile  on  her 
lips,  and  her  eyes  looked  out  as  trustfully  and  curiously 
as  a  child's. 

She  was  very  young,  a  child  still,  with  a  flat  little 
breast,  but  old  enough  to  be  married.  There  was  no 
doubt  of  her  prettiness,  and  only  one  thing  about  her 
might  not  prove  pleasing — she  had  large  hands,  like  a 
man's,  and  her  arms  now  hung  idly  at  her  sides,  like 
a  great  pair  of  tongs. 

"She  has  no  dowry,  but  we  will  overlook  that,"  said 
the  old  man  to  the  aunt.  "  We  took  a  girl  out  of  a  poor 
family  for  our  son  Stephen,  and  we  will  not  be  grasping 
in  this  case.  In  a  house,  as  in  a  business,  it  is  clever 
hands  that  count." 

Lipa  stood  in  the  doorway  and  seemed  to  be  saying, 
"Do  what  you  want  with  me,  I  trust  you,"  and  her 
mother,  the  charwoman,  hid  in  the  kitchen,  swooning 
with  fear.  Once,  in  her  youth,  a  merchant  whose  floors 
she  was  scrubbing  had  lost  his  temper  and  kicked  her, 
and  she  had  been  dreadfully  frightened  and  had  fainted. 
Terror  had  haunted  her  soul  ever  since.  Her  hands 
and  feet  were  always  trembling  with  fear  and  also  her 
cheeks.  As  she  sat  in  the  kitchen  now,  trying  to  over- 
hear what  the  guests  were  saying,  she  kept  crossing 
herself,  pressing  her  hands  to  her  brow,  and  glancing 


IN  THE  RAVINE  263 

at  the  icon.  Anasim,  slightly  drunk,  opened  the  door 
into  the  kitchen  and  said  easily: 

"What  are  you  sitting  in  here  for,  precious  mother? 
We  are  lonely  without  you!" 

And  the  mother,  Praskovia,  quailed  and  answered, 
clasping  her  hands  to  her  lean  breast: 

"Oh,  don't  say  that,  sir!  Oh,  indeed,  we  are  de- 
lighted with  you,  sir!" 

When  the  visit  of  inspection  had  come  to  an  end  a 
date  was  fixed  for  the  wedding.  After  this  Anasim 
spent  his  days  at  home  walking  from  one  room  to  an- 
other and  whistling,  or  else  he  would  suddenly  recollect 
something,  stop,  and  stand  plunged  in  meditation, 
motionless,  staring  fixedly  out  across  the  fields,  as  if 
he  meant  to  pierce  the  earth  with  his  gaze.  He  showed 
no  pleasure  at  the  thought  of  being  married  and  being 
married  soon,  on  the  Monday  after  Quasimodo  Sunday; 
he  had  no  desire  to  see  his  betrothed  and  only  continued 
to  whistle.  It  was  plain  that  he  was  marrying  simply 
because  his  father  and  stepmother  desired  it  and  be- 
cause it  was  the  village  custom  for  the  son  to  marry 
and  bring  a  helper  into  the  house.  He  was  in  no  haste 
to  leave  home  and  did  not  behave  in  any  way  as  he 
had  on  his  former  visits.  There  was  something  un- 
usually free  and  easy  in  his  manner,  and  he  talked 
wildly  and  at  random. 


264  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 


III 

In  a  neighbouring  village  lived  two  dressmakers,  sis- 
ters, from  whom  the  wedding  garments  were  ordered, 
and  these  women  came  often  to  the  house  to  try  on 
the  clothes  and  sat  for  long  hours  drinking  tea.  For 
Varvara  they  made  a  brown  dress  trimmed  with  black 
lace  and  imitation  jet  and  for  Aksinia  a  light  green  one 
with  a  yellow  breast  and  sash.  When  the  dressmakers 
had  finished  their  work,  Tsibukin  did  not  pay  them  in 
money  but  in  wares  from  his  store,  and  they  left  the 
house  sorrowfully,  with  their  arms  full  of  packages  of 
stearine  candles  and  sardines  for  which  they  had  no 
use  in  the  world.  When  they  had  left  the  village  be- 
hind them  and  were  out  in  the  fields,  they  sat  down  on 
a  little  heap  of  earth  and  began  to  cry. 

Anasim  came  home  three  days  before  the  wedding, 
dressed  all  in  new  clothes.  He  had  on  shiny  new  rubber 
overshoes  and,  instead  of  a  necktie,  wore  round  his 
neck  a  red  cord  with  little  balls  at  the  end.  From  his 
shoulders  hung  an  overcoat,  also  new,  which  he  had 
thrown  on  without  putting  his  arms  into  the  sleeves. 

He  said  a  prayer  gravely  and  then  greeted  his  father 
and  handed  him  ten  silver  roubles  and  ten  half-rouble 
pieces.  He  gave  the  same  to  Varvara,  and  to  Aksinia 
he  presented  twenty  quarter  roubles.  The  magnifi- 
cence of  this  present  lay  in  the  fact  that  all  these  were 
picked,  new  coins,  flashing  in  the  sunlight.  Anasim 


IN  THE  RAVINE  265 

tried  to  appear  serious  and  sedate  by  composing  his 
features  and  blowing  out  his  cheeks,  and  when  he  did 
this  he  smelled  of  vodka;  he  had  probably  run  into 
some  station  restaurant  on  the  way.  There  appeared  in 
him,  as  before,  the  same  lack  of  restraint;  once  more 
there  seemed  something  exaggerated  about  the  man. 

"They  are  all  well,"  said  Anasim.  "Every  one  is 
all  right,  thank  Heaven,  but  there  has  been  an  event  in 
Yegoroff's  family;  his  old  woman  is  dead — of  consump- 
tion. They  ordered  a  funeral  dinner  from  the  pastry- 
cook's at  two  and  a  half  roubles  a  head.  And  they  had 
grape  wine.  There  were  some  peasants  from  our  part 
of  the  country  there,  too,  and  Yegoroff  paid  two  and  a 
half  roubles  apiece  for  them  as  welt.  The  peasants 
didn't  eat  a  thing — what  does  a  peasant  understand 
about  sauces?" 

"Two  and  a  half  roubles!"  exclaimed  the  old  man, 
shaking  his  head. 

"What  of  that?  The  city  is  not  like  a  village.  You 
go  into  a  restaurant  there  and  order  one  thing  and 
another,  a  crowd  collects,  you  all  drink,  and  before 
you  know  it  it  is  daylight  and  you  have  spent  three  or 
four  roubles  apiece.  And  if  you're  with  Samorodoff, 
he  likes  to  finish  off  with  a  cup  of  coffee  and  cognac, 
and  cognac  costs  sixty  copecks  a  glass." 

"You  don't  mean  it!"  cried  the  old  man,  enchanted. 
"You  don't  mean  it!" 

"I  am  always  with  Samorodoff  these  days.  It  is 
he  that  writes  you  my  letters.  He  writes  beautifully. 


266  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

And  if  I  were  to  tell  you,  mother,  what  Samorodoff 
is  like,"  continued  Anasim  gaily,  turning  to  Varvara, 
"you  would  not  believe  me.  I  know  all  his  affairs  as 
well  as  I  know  my  five  fingers.  He  follows  me  every- 
where; he  never  leaves  me;  and  we  are  as  thick  as 
thieves.  He  is  a  little  afraid  of  me,  but  he  can't  live 
without  me.  Wherever  I  go  he  goes.  Do  you  know, 
mother,  I  have  a  true,  straight  eye?  If  I  see  a  peas- 
ant at  a  rag-fair  selling  a  shirt,  I  cry:  'Hold  on!  That 
shirt  was  stolen!'  And,  sure  enough,  it  turns  out  that 
it  was  stolen." 

"How  can  you  tell  that?"  asked  Varvara. 

"I  just  know  it;  my  eyes  are  made  that  way.  I 
know  nothing  about  the  shirt,  but  somehow  I  am  drawn 
toward  it;  it  is  stolen,  and  that  is  all.  They  say  among 
the  detectives,  'Anasim  has  gone  snipe  shooting!' 
That  means  hunting  for  stolen  goods.  Yes,  any  one 
can  steal,  but  let  him  have  a  care!  The  world  is  large, 
but  there  is  no  place  in  it  to  hide  stolen  goods!" 

"Two  rams  and  two  ewes  were  stolen  from  Gunto- 
rieff  last  week,"  said  Varvara,  and  sighed.  "They 
ought  to  be  found;  oh,  tut,  tut!" 

"Why  not?  They  can  be  found.  That's  nothing. 
That  can  be  done." 

The  day  of  the  wedding  came  round,  a  cool,  clear, 
joyful  April  day.  Since  early  morning  vehicles  drawn 
by  pairs  and  threes  of  horses  had  been  trotting  about 
Ukleyevo,  their  bells  ringing,  the  yokes  and  manes  and 
tails  of  the  horses  adorned  with  gaudy  ribbons.  The 


IN  THE  RAVINE  267 

rooks  cawed  in  the  willows,  excited  by  all  this  traffic, 
and  the  starlings  chattered  incessantly  as  if  they  were 
rejoicing  that  there  was  to  be  a  wedding  at  the  Tsi- 
bukins'. 

In  the  house  the  tables  were  laden  with  great  fish 
and  hams  and  stuffed  birds,  with  boxes  of  sardines, 
with  various  salt  meats  and  pickles,  and  with  numerous 
bottles  of  vodka  and  different  wines.  The  air  smelled 
of  smoked  sausages  and  pickled  lobsters.  Around  the 
tables  wandered  the  old  man,  with  his  heels  tapping  on 
the  floor,  sharpening  the  knives  one  against  the  other. 

Every  one  was  calling  to  Varvara  and  asking  her 
for  things,  and  she  was  running,  pan  ting  and  distraught, 
in  and  out  of  the  kitchen,  where  a  man  cook  from  the 
Kostiukoffs'  and  a  pale  woman  from  Hrimin's  Sons 
had  been  working  since  daylight.  Aksinia,  in  curl 
papers  and  a  corset,  with  squeaky  new  boots  but 
without  a  dress,  was  flying  about  the  courtyard  like  a 
whirlwind,  and  all  that  could  be  seen  of  her  was  the 
flash  of  her  bare  shoulders  and  breast.  There  was 
much  noise,  and  scolding  and  swearing  were  heard. 
People  passing  by  paused  at  the  open  gate,  and  it  was 
clear  from  all  signs  that  something  unusual  was  taking 
place. 

"They  have  gone  for  the  bride!" 

Carriage  bells  chimed,  and  the  sound  of  them  died 
away  beyond  the  village.  At  three  o'clock  a  crowd 
came  running;  again  bells  were  heard — the  bride  was 
coming!  The  church  was  packed;  the  lustres  were 


268  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

burning;  the  choir  was  singing  from  music  at  the  old 
man's  desire.  Lipa  was  blinded  by  the  glare  of  the 
candles  and  the  bright  dresses;  it  seemed  to  her  as 
though  the  loud  voices  of  the  choristers  were  thump- 
ing on  her  head;  her  shoes  pinched;  and  the  corset, 
which  she  now  wore  for  the  first  time  in  her  life, 
suffocated  her.  She  looked  as  if  she  had  just  awakened 
from  a  swoon,  and  gazed  about  her  without  compre- 
hension. Anasim,  in  a  black  coat,  with  a  red  cord  for 
a  necktie,  stood  staring  absent-mindedly  at  one  spot, 
crossing  himself  swiftly  at  every  loud  burst  of  singing. 
His  heart  was  full  of  emotion  and  he  wanted  to  weep. 
He  had  known  this  church  since  early  childhood;  his 
dead  mother  had  brought  him  here  to  communion; 
he  had  sung  in  the  choir  as  a  boy;  he  remembered 
so  well  every  little  corner,  every  icon.  And  here  he 
was  now  being  married  because  it  was  proper  to  do  so; 
but  he  no  longer  thought  about  this;  he  had  forgotten 
the  wedding.  Tears  welled  up  from  his  heart  and 
strangled  him,  and  he  could  no  longer  distinguish  the 
icons.  He  prayed  and  besought  God  that  the  impend- 
ing doom  which  was  ready  to  overwhelm  him  might 
somehow  pass  over,  as  thunder-clouds  pass  over  a  vil- 
lage in  time  of  drought.  He  had  heaped  up  so  many 
sins  in  the  past,  everything  seemed  so  unavoidable  and 
irremediable,  that  somehow  it  was  absurd  to  ask  for 
forgiveness,  but  he  did  ask  it  and  even  sobbed  aloud. 
No  one  heeded  him,  for  they  thought  he  was  drunk. 
A  child's  frightened  weeping  was  heard. 


IN  THE  RAVINE  269 

"Dear  mummy,  take  me  away  from  here,  dearest!" 

"Quiet  there!"  cried  a  priest. 

The  people  ran  behind  the  wedding  party  as  it  went 
home  from  the  church,  and  a  crowd  collected  around 
the  store,  at  the  gate,  and  in  the  courtyard  under  the 
windows  of  the  house.  The  peasant  women  were  there 
to  hymn  the  praises  of  the  young  people.  As  they 
crossed  the  threshold  the  chorus  that  was  standing  in 
the  hall  with  their  music  in  their  hands  burst  into  song 
at  the  top  of  their  lungs  and  the  band  which  had  been 
sent  for  from  the  city  struck  up  a  tune.  Foaming 
drinks  were  handed  about  in  tall  goblets,  and  Elizaroff 
the  carpenter,  a  tall,  spare  old  man  with  eyebrows  so 
thick  that  his  eyes  were  scarce  visible,  turned  to  the 
young  couple  and  said: 

"You,  Anasim,  and  you,  little  child,  love  one  another, 
live  in  the  fear  of  God,  my  children,  and  the  Queen 
of  Heaven  will  not  forsake  you."  He  fell  on  the  old 
father's  shoulder  and  sobbed.  "Gregory,  let  us  weep, 
let  us  weep  with  joy!"  he  cried  in  a  high  voice,  and 
then  at  once  continued  in  a  bass  one:  "Ho!  ho!  ho! 
and  your  bride  is  a  beauty!  Everything  about  her  is 
in  its  right  place;  everything  runs  smoothly;  nothing 
rattles;  the  whole  mechanism  is  in  order;  there  are 
many  springs  to  it." 

He  was  a  native  of  the  district  of  Yegorieff,  but  he 
had  worked  since  the  days  of  his  youth  in  the  factories 
of  Ukleyevo.  He  had  been  familiar  for  many  years 
as  always  the  same  tall,  thin  old  man  and  had  long 


270  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

been  called  Bony.  Possibly  because  he  had  done 
repair  work  at  the  factory  for  more  than  forty  years, 
he  judged  everything  and  everybody  from  a  standard 
of  durability  and  was  always  asking  himself  whether 
they  needed  repairing.  Before  sitting  down  he  tried 
several  chairs  to  make  sure  they  were  sound  and  also 
touched  the  fish. 

After  the  foaming  drink,  every  one  began  to  take  seats 
at  the  tables.  The  guests  chattered  as  they  pulled  out 
their  chairs;  the  singers  shouted  in  the  hall;  the  band 
played;  the  peasant  women  in  the  courtyard  sang 
their  hymns  of  praise  all  on  one  note — a  dreadful,  wild 
babel  of  sound  arose  that  made  the  head  swim. 

Bony  twisted  about  on  his  chair,  nudged  his  neigh- 
bours with  his  elbows  and  kept  them  from  talking,  and 
alternately  wept  and  laughed. 

"Children,  children,  children,"  he  mumbled  rapidly. 
"My  little  Aksinia,  my  little  Varvara;  let  us  all  live  in 
peace  and  happiness,  my  dear  little  hatchets " 

He  seldom  drank  and  a  single  glass  of  English  bitters 
had  now  gone  to  his  head.  These  foul  bitters  of  un- 
known manufacture  stunned  whoever  drank  them  as  if 
he  had  been  hit  on  the  head.  People's  tongues  began 
to  trip. 

The  clergy  were  at  the  party,  and  the  factory 
clerks  with  their  wives,  and  the  traders  and  innkeep- 
ers from  the  neighbouring  villages.  The  county  clerk, 
who  had  never  written  a  word  in  the  fourteen  years  of 
his  service  and  who  had  never  let  a  man  leave  the 


IN  THE  RAVINE  271 

county  without  first  having  cheated  him,  now  sat 
beside  the  head  of  the  district.  Both  men  were  bloated 
and  fat  and  had  fed  on  injustice  for  so  long  that  their 
very  complexions  had  taken  on  a  strange,  knavish  hue. 
The  clerk's  wife,  a  thin  woman  with  a  squint,  had 
brought  all  her  children  with  her  and,  like  a  bird  of 
prey,  kept  one  eye  on  the  dishes,  grabbing  everything 
that  came  within  reach  and  concealing  it  in  her 
pockets  and  in  those  of  her  children. 

Lipa  sat  as  if  turned  to  stone,  with  the  same  look  on 
her  face  that  she  had  worn  in  the  church.  Anasim 
had  not  yet  spoken  a  word  to  her,  so  that  he  did  not 
know  the  sound  of  her  voice;  he  now  sat  silently  drink- 
ing bitters  until  he  was  drunk,  and  then  turned  to  his 
bride's  aunt  sitting  opposite  and  said: 

"I  have  a  friend  whose  name  is  Samorodoff,  a  pe- 
culiar man.  I  see  through  and  through  him,  aunt,  and 
he  knows  it.  Let  us  drink  to  the  health  of  Samorodoff, 
aunt!" 

Varvara  walked  round  and  round  the  tables,  helping 
the  guests  to  the  viands;  she  was  tired  and  confused, 
but  was  evidently  happy  at  the  sight  of  so  much  food 
and  magnificence.  Nobody  could  criticise  after  this! 
The  sun  went  down,  but  the  dinner  still  continued. 
The  guests  no  longer  knew  what  they  were  eating  and 
drinking,  and  what  they  were  saying  was  indistinguish- 
able; only  from  time  to  time,  when  the  music  died 
down,  some  woman  in  the  courtyard  could  be  heard 
shouting: 


£72  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

"They  are  drunk  on  our  blood,  the  oppressors! 
Down  with  them!" 

In  the  evening  they  danced  to  the  music  of  the  band. 
Hrimin's  Sons  came  and  brought  their  own  wine;  and 
one  of  them  held  a  bottle  in  each  hand  and  a  wine-glass 
in  his  mouth  while  dancing  the  quadrille,  at  which 
every  one  laughed.  In  the  midst  of  the  quadrille  the 
dancers  suddenly  leaped  into  a  headlong  peasant  dance, 
and  the  green  Aksinia  whirled  like  a  flash,  her  sash 
raising  a  wind  behind  her.  Some  one  stepped  on  her 
flounce  and  ripped  it  off,  at  which  Bony  shouted: 

"Hey!  the  plinth  has  been  torn  off  down  there,  chil- 
dren!" 

Aksinia's  eyes  were  candid  and  steady  and  grey,  and 
a  naive  smile  was  always  on  her  lips.  There  was  some- 
thing serpentine  in  those  unwinking  grey  eyes,  in  her 
litheness,  and  in  her  little  head  on  its  long  neck. 
Dressed  all  in  green  with  her  yellow  breast,  and  a 
smile  on  her  lips,  she  looked  like  one  of  those  little 
green  snakes  that  raise  their  heads  and  stretch  their 
necks  and  peer  out  at  the  passer-by  from  a  field  of 
young  rye  in  springtime.  The  Hrimins  were  free  in 
their  manner  with  her,  and  it  was  very  clear  that  she 
and  the  eldest  of  them  had  long  been  in  close  relation- 
ship. The  deaf  boy  understood  nothing  of  it  all  and 
did  not  even  look  at  her;  he  sat  with  his  legs  crossed, 
eating  nuts  and  cracking  them  so  loudly  with  his  teeth 
that  it  sounded  as  if  he  were  firing  off  a  revolver. 

But  now  old  Tsibukin  himself  stepped  out  into  the 


IN  THE  RAVINE  273 

middle  of  the  floor  and  waved  his  handkerchief  as  a 
signal  that  he,  too,  wanted  to  dance.  From  the  whole 
house  and  from  the  crowd  in  the  courtyard  rose  a  shout 
of  acclamation: 

"He's  dancing  himself,  himself!" 

Varvara  danced  and  the  old  man  only  waved  his 
handkerchief  and  kept  time  with  his  heels,  but  the 
people  in  the  courtyard,  who  were  clinging  to  one  an- 
other and  staring  in  at  the  windows,  were  transported 
with  delight  and  for  the  moment  forgave  him  every- 
thing, both  his  wealth  and  the  wrongs  he  had  done 
them. 

"Bravo,  Gregory  Tsibukin!"  the  crowd  shouted. 
"That's  right!  Goon!  You  can  still  work !  Ha!  ha!" 

It  was  late,  two  o'clock  at  night,  before  the  festivi- 
ties came  to  an  end.  Anasim,  staggering,  made  the 
round  of  the  singers  and  musicians  and  gave  each  of 
them  a  new  silver  half -rouble;  and  the  old  man,  who 
was  not  staggering,  but  who,  nevertheless,  seemed  to 
be  lame  in  one  leg,  saw  the  guests  off  and  said  to  each 
one: 

"The  wedding  cost  two  thousand  roubles." 

As  the  guests  were  separating  some  one  exchanged 
an  old  coat  for  the  innkeeper's  new  one;  Anasim  flared 
up  and  cried: 

"Wait!  Let  me  find  it!  I  know  who  stole  it! 
Wait!" 

He  ran  out  into  the  street  in  pursuit,  but  they  caught 
him,  led  him  home,  and  thrust  him,  drunken  and  damp 


274  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

and  flushed  with  anger,  into  the  room  where  Lipa's 
mother  had  already  undressed  the  girl. 

IV 

Five  days  went  by.  Anasim  was  ready  to  leave,  and 
went  up-stairs  to  bid  farewell  to  Varvara.  All  her  little 
lamps  were  burning  and  there  was  a  smell  of  incense  in 
the  room;  she  was  sitting  at  the  window  knitting  a  red 
woollen  sock. 

"You  haven't  stayed  with  us  long,"  she  said.  "Is 
it  so  tiresome  here?  Oh,  tut,  tut!  We  live  well  and 
have  everything  in  plenty,  and  your  wedding  was  cele- 
brated in  decency  and  decorum;  the  old  man  said  it 
cost  two  thousand  roubles.  In  a  word,  we  live  as 
merchants  should,  and  yet  it  is  sad  here.  We  do 
the  people  a  great  deal  of  harm.  My  heart  aches,  boy, 
because  we  do  them  so  much  wrong — oh,  my  Lord! 
Whether  we  trade  a  horse  or  buy  anything  or  hire  a 
workman,  we  cheat  them  in  everything.  We  cheat, 
cheat,  cheat.  The  sunflower  oil  in  the  store  is  tainted 
and  bitter  and  more  nasty  than  tar.  Tell  me,  for 
Heaven's  sake,  couldn't  we  sell  them  good  oil?" 

"Every  Jack  to  his  own  trade,  mamma." 

"Have  you  forgotten  that  some  day  we  shall  die? 
Oh,  oh!  Talk  to  your  father,  do!" 

"You  should  talk  to  him  yourself." 

"I!  I  tell  him  what  I  think  and  he  answers  me  in 
a  word,  as  you  do:  every  man  to  his  trade;  but  God  is 
just." 


IN  THE  RAVINE  275 

"Of  course,  no  one  can  decide  what  is  right  and 
what  is  wrong,"  said  Anasim,  sighing.  "There  is  no 
God,  anyway,  so  what  is  there  to  decide?" 

Varvara  looked  at  him  in  astonishment,  laughing  and 
clasping  her  hands,  and  he  was  abashed  to  see  her  so 
honestly  surprised  at  what  he  had  said.  She  was  look- 
ing at  him  as  if  he  were  a  very  comical  fellow,  in- 
deed. 

"Perhaps  there  may  be  a  God,  but  people  don't  be- 
lieve in  him,"  said  Anasim.  "When  I  was  being  mar- 
ried I  did  not  feel  like  myself.  My  conscience  sud- 
denly began  to  call  as  a  little  chicken  calls  in  an  egg 
that  you  take  out  from  under  a  hen.  All  the  time  I 
was  being  married  I  kept  thinking,  'There  is  a  God, 
there  is  a  God!'  but  when  I  came  out  of  the  church 
the  feeling  went,  and  how  can  I  tell  whether  God 
exists  or  not?  We  were  not  taught  it  in  our  childhood. 
When  a  baby  is  still  at  its  mother's  breast  it  is  only 
taught  one  thing — every  man  for  himself.  My  father 
does  not  believe  in  God.  You  told  me  once  that 
Guntorieff's  sheep  had  been  stolen.  I  found  them; 
they  were  stolen  by  a  peasant  from  Shiskaloff,  but  my 
father  has  the  hides.  There's  belief  in  God  for  you!" 

Anasim  blinked  and  shook  his  head. 

"And  the  head  of  the  district  does  npt  believe  in 
God,"  he  continued,  "nor  the  clerk,  nor  the  deacon. 
The  only  reason  they  go  to  church  and  keep  the  fasts 
is  so  that  people  shan't  speak  ill  of  them  and  in  case 
there  should  really  happen  to  be  a  last  judgment  day. 


276  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

People  say  now  that  the  end  of  the  world  has  come 
because  we  are  all  growing  weak  and  no  longer  respect 
our  parents  and  so  on,  but  that  is  nonsense.  My 
opinion  is,  mother,  that  all  misery  comes  from  a  lack 
of  conscience.  If  a  man  is  wearing  a  shirt  that  has 
been  stolen,  I  know  it.  I  can  see  through  everything, 
mother,  and  I  know.  When  you  see  a  man  in  a  tavern 
drinking  tea,  he  appears  to  you  to  be  drinking  tea  and 
nothing  more,  but  I  see  more  than  that — I  see  that  he 
has  no  conscience.  From  morning  to  night  I  go  about 
and  never  see  a  man  with  a  conscience,  and  the  reason 
of  it  all  is  that  no  one  is  certain  whether  there  is  a 
God  or  not.  Well,  mother,  good-bye.  Keep  well  and 
happy  and  don't  think  ill  of  me." 

Anasim  bowed  down  to  Varvara's  feet. 

"We  thank  you  for  everything,  mother,"  he  said. 
"You  do  our  family  a  great  deal  of  good.  You  are  a 
splendid  woman;  I  like  you  very  much." 

'The  agitated  Anasim  went  out  but  soon  came  back 
and  said: 

"Samorodoff  has  involved  me  in  certain  business 
affairs.  I  shall  either  be  rich  or  I  shall  be  undone.  If 
anything  should  happen,  mother,  you  must  console 
my  father." 

"So  that's  what  it  is!  Oh,  tut,  tut!  God  is  merci- 
ful.  You,  Anasim,  ought  to  be  kinder  to  your  wife; 
you  glare  at  each  other  as  if  you  had  quarrelled.  You 
might  at  least  smile,  really." 

"She  is  strange  somehow,"  said  Anasim,  sighing. 


IN  THE  RAVINE  277 

"She  doesn't  understand  anything;  she  never  says 
anything.  She  is  very  young  yet;  let  her  grow  up." 

A  big  white  stallion  was  standing  at  the  front  door 
harnessed  to  a  cart. 

Old  Tsibukin  ran  out  of  the  house,  jumped  in 
bravely,  and  took  hold  of  the  reins.  Anasim  kissed 
Varvara,  Aksinia,  and  his  brother.  Lipa  was  standing 
on  the  door-step  motionless,  looking  off  to  one  side  as 
if  she  were  not  there  to  say  good-bye  but  had  come 
out  for  no  special  reason.  Anasim  went  up  to  her  and 
lightly  brushed  her  cheek  with  his  lips. 

"Good-bye,"  he  said. 

She  smiled  strangely  without  looking  at  him;  her 
lips  trembled,  and  for  some  reason  they  all  felt  sorry 
for  her.  Anasim  also  jumped  into  the  cart  with  a 
bound  and  stuck  his  arms  akimbo,  as  if  he  thought 
himself  a  handsome  fellow. 

As  they  drove  up  out  of  the  ravine  Anasim  kept 
looking  back  at  the  village.  The  day  was  warm  and 
bright.  The  cattle  had  been  driven  out  into  the  fields 
for  the  first  time  that  year,  and  the  peasant  girls  and 
women  were  walking  about  near  the  herds  in  their 
holiday  dresses.  A  brown  bull  was  bellowing  with 
joy  at  finding  himself  free  and  was  pawing  up  the 
ground  with  his  forefoot.  Larks  were  singing  every- 
where, above  and  below.  Anasim  looked  back  at  the 
pretty  white  church — it  had  been  freshly  whitewashed 
— and  remembered  how  he  had  prayed  there  five  days 
since;  he  looked  back  at  the  school  with  its  green  roof 


278  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

and  at  the  little  river  in  which  he  had  so  often  bathed 
and  fished.  Joy  surged  up  in  his  breast,  and  he  wished 
that  a  wall  might  suddenly  rise  up  out  of  the  ground 
and  bar  his  onward  way  so  that  he  might  be  left  with 
the  past  alone. 

At  the  station  father  and  son  went  into  the  restau- 
rant and  each  had  a  glass  of  sherry.  The  old  man  felt 
in  his  pocket  for  his  purse,  but  Anasim  cried: 

"My  treat!" 

The  old  man  patted  him  on  the  shoulder  with  emo- 
tion and  looked  around  the  little  room  as  much  as  to 
say: 

"See  what  a  son  I  have!" 

"Stay  at  home  and  work  at  our  business,  Anasim," 
he  said.  "I  will  heap  you  with  riches  from  head  to 
foot,  little  son." 

"I  can't  possibly,  daddy." 

The  sherry  was  sour  and  smelled  of  sealing-wax,  but 
each  finished  his  glass. 

On  his  return  from  the  station  the  old  man  did  not 
at  first  sight  recognise  his  younger  daughter-in-law. 
Her  husband  had  no  sooner  driven  out  of  the  courtyard 
than  Lipa  had  suddenly  changed  and  grown  merry. 
She  was  barefoot  now,  dressed  in  an  old,  worn  skirt, 
with  her  sleeves  rolled  up  to  her  shoulders,  and  was 
scrubbing  down  the  front  steps  and  singing  in  a  high, 
silvery  voice.  As  she  came  out  of  the  house  with  a 
big  wash-tub  in  her  arms  and  looked  up  at  the  sun 
with  her  childlike  smile  she,  too,  seemed  a  little  lark. 


IN  THE  RAVINE  279 

An  old  workman  who  was  passing  the  front  door 
shook  his  head  and  grunted: 

"Your  sons'  brides  have  been  sent  you  by  Heaven, 
master,"  he  said.  "They  are  not  women  but  treasures 
of  gold." 


On  a  Friday,  the  eighth  day  of  July,  Elizaroff,  or 
Bony,  and  Lipa  were  returning  together  from  a  pil- 
grimage to  the  village  of  Kazanski,  where  they  had 
been  celebrating  the  festival  of  the  Virgin  of  Kazan. 
Far  in  the  rear  walked  Lipa's  mother,  Praskovia;  she 
was  always  left  behind,  for  she  was  infirm  and  short  of 
breath.  It  was  near  evening. 

"Ah!"  exclaimed  Bony,  listening  to  Lipa.  "Ah! 
And  what  next?" 

"I  love  jam,"  Lipa  was  telling  him.  "I  often  sit 
in  a  corner  at  home  and  drink  tea  with  jam  in  it.  Or 
else  Varvara  and  I  drink  tea  together  and  she  tells  me 
strange  stories.  They  have  a  great  deal  of  jam  there — 
four  jars  full!  They  say  to  me:  'Eat  all  you  want, 
Lipa!  Don't  stint  yourself !'  " 

"Ah!    So  they  have  four  jars?" 

"They  are  rich.  They  eat  white  bread  with  their 
tea  and  have  as  much  meat  as  they  want.  They  are 
rich,  but  I  am  always  frightened  there.  Whew,  but 
I'm  frightened!" 

"Why   are   you   frightened,    child?"   asked   Bony, 


280  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

looking  round  to  see  whether  Praskovia  had  been  left 
far  behind. 

"At  first,  during  the  wedding,  I  was  frightened  by 
Anasim.  He  was  very  nice  and  never  did  me  any  harm, 
but  whenever  he  came  near  me  I  felt  the  shivers  run- 
ning all  up  and  down  my  back.  I  did  not  sleep  a  single 
night  when  he  was  here,  and  only  lay  and  shook  and 
prayed.  And  now  I  am  afraid  of  Aksinia.  She  is  very 
nice,  but  she  looks  in  at  the  window  sometimes,  and  her 
eyes  are  so  angry  and  glow  as  green  as  the  eyes  of 
a  sheep  in  a  stall.  Hrimin's  Sons  say  to  her:  'Your 
old  man  has  a  bit  of  land  at  Butekino  with  sand  and 
water  on  it.  Build  a  brick-yard  there,  Aksinia,  and 
we  will  go  shares  with  you.'  Bricks  are  twenty  roubles 
a  thousand  now;  it  is  a  profitable  business.  Yesterday 
at  dinner  Aksinia  said  to  the  old  man :  '  I  want  to  build 
a  brick-yard  at  Butekino.  I'm  going  into  business 
myself.'  She  laughed  as  she  said  that,  but  the  old 
man's  face  grew  black;  one  could  see  he  didn't  like  it. 
'As  long  as  I  am  alive,'  he  said,  'we  can't  work  apart; 
we  must  all  hold  together!'  Her  eyes  flashed  and  she 
gnashed  her  teeth.  When  the  custard  was  brought  on 
she  wouldn't  eat  any." 

"Ah!"  exclaimed  Bony.  "She  wouldn't  eat  any?" 
"Then,  at  night,  what  do  you  suppose  she  does?" 
Lipa  went  on.  "She  sleeps  half  an  hour  and  then 
jumps  up  and  walks  and  walks,  and  looks  and  looks, 
to  make  sure  that  the  peasants  haven't  set  fire  to  any- 
thing or  haven't  stolen  anything.  She  is  frightful  to 


IN  THE  RAVINE  281 

live  with,  daddy!  Hrimin's  Sons  did  not  go  to  bed 
the  night  after  the  wedding;  they  went  to  town  to  open 
a  law-suit,  and  people  say  it  was  all  because  of  her. 
Two  of  the  brothers  promised  to  build  her  the  brick- 
yard, and  the  third  brother  got  angry  about  it,  and  the 
factory  has  been  closed  for  a  month,  and  my  uncle 
Prokor  is  without  work  and  has  to  go  begging  from 
door  to  door.  'You  ought  to  go  and  plough  or  chop 
wood  in  the  meantime,  uncle,'  I  tell  him.  'Why  do 
you  disgrace  yourself?'  'No,'  he  says,  'I've  got  out 
of  the  way  of  Christian  work  now;  there's  nothing  I 
can  do,  Lipa!'  " 

They  halted  near  a  grove  of  aspens  to  rest  and  wait 
for  Praskovia.  Elizaroff  did  not  keep  a  horse  although 
he  had  long  been  a  contractor;  he  went  striding  all 
over  the  country  on  foot,  swinging  his  arms  and  carry- 
ing a  little  sack  in  which  he  kept  onions  and  bread. 
It  was  hard,  in  walking,  to  keep  pace  with  him. 

At  the  entrance  to  the  wood  stood  a  boundary  post; 
Elizaroff  touched  it  to  see  whether  it  were  in  need  of 
repairs.  Praskovia  came  up  panting.  Her  wrinkled, 
perpetually  startled  face  glowed  with  pleasure.  She 
had  been  to  church  to-day  like  other  folk  and  had  seen 
the  fair  and  had  drunk  pear  beer  there!  This  had 
seldom  happened  to  her,  and  it  even  seemed  to  her 
now  as  though  she  had  enjoyed  herself  this  day  for 
the  first  time  in  her  life.  When  they  were  rested  all 
three  walked  on  together.  The  sun  was  setting  and  its 
rays  struck  through  the  wood  and  gleamed  on  the 


282  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

trunks  of  the  trees.  Voices  rang  out  ahead  of  them. 
The  young  girls  of  Ukleyevo  had  gone  on  far  ahead, 
but  they  had  made  a  halt  in  the  woods,  no  doubt  to 
pick  mushrooms. 

"Halloo,  girls!"  shouted  Elizaroff.  "Halloo,  my 
beauties!" 

He  was  answered  by  laughter. 

"Here  comes  Bony!    Bony!    The  old  crow!" 

And  the  echoes  laughed,  too.  And  now  the  wayfarers 
left  the  wood  behind  them.  The  tops  of  the  factory 
chimneys  were  already  in  sight;  the  cross  flashed  on 
the  steeple;  there  lay  the  village  "where  the  deacon 
had  eaten  all  the  caviare  at  the  funeral."  They  were 
nearly  home  now;  there  remained  but  to  climb  down 
into  that  deep  ravine.  Lipa  and  Praskovia,  who  were 
barefooted,  sat  down  to  put  on  their  shoes  and  the 
carpenter  sat  down  beside  them.  Seen  from  above, 
Ukleyevo  looked  pretty  and  peaceful,  with  its  willows 
and  its  white  church  and  its  little  river,  but  the  view 
was  spoilt  by  the  roofs  of  the  factories,  which  were 
painted  a  sombre  grey  for  economy's  sake.  On  the 
far  slope  of  the  ravine  lay  fields  of  rye  with  the  grain 
in  stacks,  in  scattered  sheaves,  and  in  freshly  mown 
rows;  the  oats,  too,  were  ripe  and  the  fields  shim- 
mered like  mother-of-pearl  in  the  sunlight.  It  was  har- 
vest-time. The  day  had  been  a  holiday;  the  next  day 
would  be  Saturday,  and  then  they  would  rake  up  the 
rye  and  haul  away  the  hay.  Then  Sunday  would  come, 
another  holiday.  Each  day  was  steamy  and  hot,  with 


IN  THE  RAVINE  283 

thunder  growling  in  the  distance;  the  weather  threat- 
ened rain.  Men  wondered,  looking  at  the  fields, 
whether  God  would  give  them  time  to  get  in  their 
grain  and  felt  both  merry  and  anxious  at  heart. 

"The  mowers  ask  high  wages  now,"  Praskovia  re- 
marked. "One  rouble  forty  copecks  a  day." 

The  villagers  were  flocking  home  from  the  fair  at 
Kazanski:  peasant  women,  factory  hands  wearing  new 
caps,  beggars,  and  children.  Now  a  wagon  drove  by, 
raising  a  cloud  of  dust,  with  a  horse  trotting  behind 
that  seemed  to  be  glad  he  had  not  been  sold  at  the  fair; 
now  came  a  man  leading  a  stubborn  cow  by  the  horns; 
now  another  wagon  laden  with  drunken  peasants  dan- 
gling their  feet  over  the  sides.  An  old  woman  passed 
leading  by  the  hand  a  little  boy  in  a  big  hat  and  big 
boots;  the  child  was  exhausted  with  the  heat  and  by 
his  heavy  boots,  which  prevented  him  from  bending 
his  legs  at  the  knee,  but  he  was  incessantly  blowing  a 
little  toy  trumpet  with  all  his  might.  After  the  pair 
had  reached  the  bottom  of  the  ravine  and  had  turned 
into  the  street  the  trumpet  could  still  be  heard  blowing. 

"Our  manufacturers  are  in  a  bad  temper,"  said 
Elizaroff.  "It's  a  misery!  Kostiukoff  has  been  abus- 
ing me  for  putting  too  many  planks  into  a  cornice. 
'Too  many  planks,  indeed!'  said  I  to  him.  'No, 
sir,'  says  I,  'as  many  went  into  it  as  belonged  to  go  in 
and  no  more.  I  don't  eat  planks  with  my  porridge!' 
I  says.  'How  can  you  say  that,'  says  he,  'you  block- 
head ?  Don' t  forget  y ourself !  It  was  I  made  you  a  con- 


284  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

tractor!'  he  shouts.  'And  a  fine  thing  you  did  there!' 
says  I.  'Didn't  I  have  tea  every  day  just  the  same 
before  I  became  a  contractor?'  'You  are  all  cheats!' 
he  cried.  I  said  nothing.  'We  are  all  cheats  in  this 
world,'  I  thought,  'but  you  will  be  cheated  in  the  next!' 
Ho!  ho!  ho!  Next  day  he  felt  better.  'Don't  be 
angry  with  me,'  he  said,  'about  what  I  said  to  you 
yesterday.  If  I  said  more  than  I  should,  remember 
that  I  am  a  merchant  of  the  first  guild.  I  am  your 
superior  and  you  must  hold  your  tongue.'  'You  are 
right,'  I  says.  'You  are  a  merchant  of  the  first  guild 
and  I  am  a  carpenter,  but  the  holy  Joseph  was  a  car- 
penter, too,'  says  I.  'Our  work  is  honest  and  godly 
work,  but  you  wish  to  be  my  superior!'  says  I.  'You 
are  welcome.'  But  after  that  conversation  I  began  to 
wonder  who  was  the  superior,  a  carpenter  or  a  mer- 
chant of  the  first  guild.  Perhaps  a  carpenter  is,  chil- 
dren." 

Bony  reflected  awhile  and  then  added: 
"He  is  the  superior,  children.    He  whojabours  and 
endures  is  the  superior." 

The  sun  had  gone  down  and  a  thick  mist  as  white 
as  milk  hung  over  the  river  and  lay  in  the  churchyard 
and  on  the  meadows  around  the  factories.  Night  was 
swiftly  falling,  little  lights  began  to  shine  out  in  the 
ravine,  and  the  fog  seemed  to  be  concealing  a  bottom- 
less abyss.  Lipa  and  her  mother  had  been  born  beg- 
gars and  had  been  ready  to  live  as  beggars  all  their  lives, 
ready  to  surrender  everything  to  others  except  their 


IN  THE  RAVINE  285 

meek,  timid  souls,  but  now,  perhaps,  they  dreamed 
for  an  instant  that  in  this  great,  mysterious  world 
they,  too,  had  power  and  were  superior  to  some  one. 
They  were  happy,  sitting  there  above  the  village,  and 
smiled  joyously  and  forgot  that  they  must  descend  to 
the  bottom  once  more. 

They  turned  homeward  at  last.  A  crowd  of  mowers 
were  sitting  on  the  ground  at  the  gates  of  the  courtyard 
and  around  the  store.  The  peasants  of  Ukleyevo 
usually  refused  to  work  for  Tsibukin  and  he  had  to 
hire  labourers  elsewhere,  so  they  sat  there  now  looking, 
among  the  shadows,  like  men  with  long,  black  beards. 
The  store  was  open  and  the  deaf  son  could  be  seen 
through  the  door  playing  checkers  with  a  little  boy. 
The  mowers  now  sang  softly,  almost  inaudibly,  now 
loudly  demanded  their  day's  wages,  but  these  no  one 
gave  them  because  the  men  were  wanted  for  the  next 
day.  Tsibukin,  in  a  waistcoat  and  no  coat,  was  sitting 
with  Aksinia  under  a  birch-tree  near  the  front  door- 
steps drinking  tea.  A  lamp  was  burning  on  the  table. 

"Dad-dy!"  called  one  of  the  mowers  outside  the 
gate  in  a  teasing  voice.  "Pay  us,  if  it's  only  half! 
Dad-dy ! "  At  this  the  other  mowers  laughed  and  then 
began  to  sing  again  softly.  Bony  sat  down  to  drink 
tea. 

"We  have  been  to  the  fair,"  he  began.  "We  have 
been  on  a  spree,  children,  a  jolly  spree,  the  Lord  be 
praised.  But  one  unfortunate  thing  happened.  Sashka 
the  blacksmith  bought  some  tobacco  and  gave  the  mer- 


286  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

chant  he  bought  it  of  half  a  rouble  for  it.  The  coin 
proved  to  be  false,"  Bony  went  on,  glancing  around. 
He  had  meant  to  whisper,  but  had  spoken,  instead,  in 
a  hoarse,  choking  voice  and  every  one  had  heard  him. 
"And  the  coin  proved  to  be  false.  Sashka  was  asked 
where  he  had  got  it.  'Anasim  Tsibukin  gave  it  to  me 
at  his  wedding/  he  said.  A  policeman  was  called 
and  he  was  arrested.  Take  care,  Tsibukin,  that  some- 
thing doesn't  come  of  it!" 

"Dad-dy!"  teased  the  same  voice  outside  the  gate. 
"Dad-dy!" 

Silence  fell. 

"Ah,  children,  children,  children!"  mumbled  Bony 
rapidly  as  he  rose  from  his  seat.  Sleep  was  overpower- 
ing him.  "It's  time  for  bed.  I  am  rotting  and  my 
beams  are  crumbling!  Ho!  ho!  ho!" 

As  he  walked  away  he  said: 

"It's  time  to  die,  I  suppose,"  and  at  that  he  sobbed. 

Old  Tsibukin  did  not  finish  drinking  his  tea;  he 
sat  thinking,  and,  from  his  expression,  seemed  to  be 
listening  to  the  footfalls  of  Bony,  who  was  by  now 
far  down  the  street. 

"Sashka  the  blacksmith  was  lying,  perhaps,"  said 
Aksinia,  divining  his  thoughts. 

He  went  into  the  house  and  soon  came  out  again 
carrying  a  little  package.  This  he  opened;  it  was  full 
of  shining  new  roubles.  He  took  one,  tried  it  between 
his  teeth,  rang  it  on  the  tray,  and  then  rang  another. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  looking  at  Aksinia  as  if  he  still 


IN  THE  RAVINE  287 

doubted  it.  "The  coins  are  false.  These  are  the  ones 
that —  Anasim  brought  these  home;  they  are  his  pres- 
ent. Take  them,  daughter,"  he  whispered,  slipping  the 
package  into  her  hands.  "Take  them  and  throw  them 
into  the  well.  Away  with  them!  And  see  that  there 
is  no  talk  about  this.  Something  might  happen.  Take 
away  the  samovar;  put  out  the  lights." 

Lipa  and  Praskovia,  sitting  in  an  outhouse,  saw  the 
lights  go  out  one  by  one;  up  in  Varvara's  room  only 
the  little  red  and  blue  shrine  lamps  were  still  burn- 
ing, and  from  thence  breathed  peace  and  contentment 
and  ignorance.  Praskovia  never  could  get  used  to 
the  fact  that  her  daughter  had  married  a  rich  man, 
and  when  she  came  to  his  house  would  hide  herself  in 
the  hallway  with  a  beseeching  smile  on  her  face  and 
her  tea  and  sugar  would  be  sent  out  to  her.  Neither 
could  Lipa  grow  accustomed  to  this  life,  and  she  did 
not  sleep  in  her  bed  after  her  husband's  departure,  but 
lay  down  wherever  she  happened  to  be — in  the  kitchen 
or  in  an  outhouse.  Every  day  she  washed  the  clothes 
or  scrubbed  the  floors  and  felt  that  she  still  was  a 
charwoman.  And  now,  after  their  return  from  their 
pilgrimage,  they  drank  their  tea  in  the  kitchen  with 
the  cook  and  then  went  into  an  outhouse  and  lay  down 
on  the  floor  between  the  sleighs  and  the  wall.  It  was 
already  dark  and  the  air  smelled  of  harness.  The  lights 
went  out  near  the  house  and  they  could  hear  the  deaf 
boy  closing  the  store  and  the  mowers  disposing  them- 
selves for  the  night  in  the  courtyard.  Far  away  in 


288  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE  - 

the  distance  Hrimin's  Sons  were  playing  on  their  ex- 
pensive accordion.  Praskovia  and  Lipa  were  drop- 
ping asleep  when  they  were  awakened  by  the  sound  of 
footsteps.  The  moon  was  now  shining  brightly.  At 
the  door  of  the  outhouse  stood  Aksinia  with  her  bed- 
clothes in  her  arms. 

"  Perhaps  it  will  be  cooler  here,"  she  said  and  came 
into  the  outhouse  and  lay  down  near  the  threshold  with 
the  moon  shining  full  upon  her. 

She  could  not  go  to  sleep  but  sighed  grievously  and 
lay  tossing  to  and  fro  in  the  heat  and  at  last  threw  off 
most  of  what  she  had  over  her.  What  a  gorgeous, 
proud  animal  she  looked  in  the  magic  light  of  the  moon ! 
A  short  time  passed  and  again  steps  were  heard.  The 
old  man  appeared,  all  in  white,  in  the  doorway. 

"Aksinia,"  he  called,  "are  you  here?" 

"What  is  it?"  she  answered  crossly. 

"I  told  you  yesterday  evening  to  throw  the  money 
into  the  well.  Did  you  do  it?" 

"The  idea  of  throwing  property  into  the  water!  I 
gave  it  to  the  mowers." 

"Oh,  my  God!"  groaned  the  old  man  in  fear  and  per- 
plexity. "You  insolent  woman — oh,  my  God!" 

He  wrung  his  hands  and  walked  away,  muttering  as 
he  went.  Aksinia  sat  up,  sighing  heavily  with  vexa- 
tion, and  then  got  up  and  gathered  up  her  bedclothes 
and  went  out. 

"Why  did  you  marry  me  into  this  house,  mother?" 
asked  Lipa. 


IN  THE  RAVINE  289 

"A  girl  must  marry,  my  daughter.  It  is  none  of 
our  doing." 

A  feeling  of  inconsolable  anguish  was  about  to  over- 
whelm them,  but  it  seemed  to  them  as  if  out  of  the 
vault  of  the  dark-blue  heaven  above  them,  there  where 
the  stars  were,  some  one  was  watching  everything  that 
went  on  in  Ukleyevo  and  was  keeping  guard  over  them. 
Though  evil  is  mighty,  night  is  peaceful  and  beautiful, 
and  there  exists  a  justice  on  God's  earth  which  is  as 
peaceful  and  as  beautiful  as  the  night;  everything  in 
the  world  is  waiting  to  join  hands  with  that  justice, 
as  the  moonlight  joins  hands  with  the  night. 

Both  women  were  quieted  and  fell  peacefully  asleep 
in  each  other's  arms. 


VI 

The  news  had  come  long  ago  that  Anasim  had  been 
sent  to  prison  for  forgery.  Months  went  by,  half  a 
year  went  by.  The  long  winter  had  passed,  spring  had 
come,  and  in  Anasim's  home  and  in  the  village  people 
had  grown  used  to  the  thought  that  he  was  in  prison. 
If  any  one  passed  his  house  at  night  he  would  remem- 
ber that  Anasim  was  in  prison;  if  the  bells  tolled  in 
the  cemetery  people  would  recall  for  some  reason  that 
Anasim  was  in  prison,  awaiting  his  trial. 

A  shadow  seemed  to  hang  over  the  house  of  the 
Tsibukins.  The  rooms  were  darker,  the  roof  was 
rusty,  and  even  old  Tsibukin  himself  seemed  somehow 


290  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

more  sombre  in  hue.  He  had  long  neglected  to  trim 
his  beard  and  hair;  he  climbed  into  his  cart  now  with- 
out a  bound  and  no  longer  cried  to  the  beggars  that 
"God  would  help  them!"  His  strength  was  failing, 
and  this  could  be  seen  in  everything.  Men  feared  him 
less  now,  and  a  warrant  had  been  issued  against  him 
for  selling  illicit  vodka,  although  the  policeman  still  re- 
ceived his  little  bribe  as  before.  Tsibukin  was  sent  to 
the  city  to  be  tried;  the  case  was  continually  being 
postponed  in  default  of  witnesses  and  tormented  the 
old  man. 

He  often  went  to  see  his  son  and  began  doing  many 
little  deeds  of  charity.  He  took  the  keeper  of  Anasim's 
prison  a  silver  holder  for  a  glass,  with  a  long  spoon  and 
an  inscription  in  enamel. 

"There  is  no  one  to  do  anything  for  him,"  said  Var- 
vara.  "Oh,  tut,  tut!  We  might  ask  some  one  of  the 
gentry  to  do  something  or  write  to  the  chief  of  police. 
They  might  at  least  set  him  free  till  his  trial.  Why 
should  the  boy  be  made  to  suffer  so?" 

She,  too,  was  distressed,  but  nevertheless  she  grew 
stouter,  and  her  complexion  grew  fairer;  she  still 
lighted  her  little  lamps  and  kept  the  house  clean  and 
treated  her  guests  to  apple  butter  and  jam.  The  deaf 
boy  and  Aksinia  now  kept  the  store.  They  had 
started  a  new  business:  a  brick-yard  had  been  opened 
at  Butekino,  and  thither  Aksinia  drove  herself  every 
day  in  a  carriage;  when  she  met  an  acquaintance  on 
the  road  she  would  stretch  out  her  neck,  as  a  little 


IN  THE  RAVINE  291 

snake  does  from  a  field  of  young  rye,  and  smile  naively 
and  enigmatically.  Lipa  spent  her  days  playing  with 
her  child,  which  had  been  born  to  her  before  Lent. 
He  was  a  wee  baby,  pitiful  and  thin,  and  it  seemed 
strange  to  think  that  he  could  cry  and  see  and  was 
looked  upon  as  a  human  being  and  even  bore  the  name 
of  Nikifor.  Lipa  used  to  go  to  the  door  as  he  lay  in  his 
cradle  and  bow  and  say: 

"Good  morning,  Nikifor  Tsibukin!" 

And  then  she  would  fly  back  and  kiss  him  and  once 
more  go  to  the  door  and  bow  and  say: 

"Good  morning,  Nikifor  Tsibukin!" 

And  the  baby  would  scratch  his  pink  feet,  and  his 
laughter  and  tears  would  mingle  together  as  they  did 
with  Elizaroff  the  carpenter. 

At  last  a  date  was  set  for  the  trial.  The  old  man 
left  home  for  five  days,  and  some  of  the  peasants  were 
called  from  the  village  to  be  witnesses;  among  them 
was  the  old  carpenter,  who  had  also  received  a  summons. 

The  trial  had  been  fixed  for  Thursday,  but  Sunday 
went  by  and  still  the  old  man  had  not  returned,  and  no 
news  had  come.  On  Tuesday  evening  Varvara  was 
sitting  at  the  open  window  listening  for  his  return. 
Lipa  was  playing  with  her  baby  in  the  next  room, 
tossing  him  in  her  arms  and  crying  in  ecstasy: 

"You'll  grow  up  to  be  a  big,  big  man!  When  you're 
a  big  peasant,  then  we'll  go  out  and  do  charwork  to- 
gether! Yes,  we  will!" 

"Look  here!"   said  Varvara,  offended.     "What   is 


292  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

that  charwork  story  you  have  invented,  little  silly? 
We  are  going  to  make  a  merchant  of  him." 

Lipa  began  to  sing  softly  but  soon  forgot  herself 
and  cried  again: 

"When  you  are  a  big,  big  peasant  we'll  go  out  and 
do  charwork  together!" 

"What  a  plan!" 

Lipa  came  and  stood  in  the  doorway  with  Nikifor 
in  her  arms  and  asked: 

"Why  do  I  love  him  so,  mother?  Why  am  I  so 
sorry  for  him?"  she  went  on  in  a  trembling  voice,  with 
tears  shining  in  her  eyes.  "Who  is  he?  He  is  as  light 
as  a  little  crumb  or  a  feather,  and  yet  I  love  him  as  if 
he  were  a  real  man!  He  can't  speak  and  yet  I  read 
everything  he  wants  to  say  in  his  eyes." 

But  Varvara  was  listening  to  something  else.  She 
could  hear  the  evening  train  as  it  drew  into  the  sta- 
tion. She  now  no  longer  knew  nor  understood  what 
Lipa  was  saying  nor  heeded  the  flight  of  time;  she 
was  trembling  from  head  to  foot,  not  with  fear  but 
with  a  mighty  curiosity.  She  saw  a  wagon  rattle 
swiftly  by  filled  with  peasants;  these  were  the  witnesses 
returning  from  the  station.  As  it  rolled  past  the  store 
an  old  workman  jumped  out  and  entered  the  court- 
yard. Voices  were  heard  greeting  him  and  asking 
questions. 

"Hard  labour  in  Siberia  for  six  years,"  said  the  old 
man  in  a  loud  voice. 

Aksinia  came  out  of  the  back  door  of  the  store;  she 


IN  THE  RAVINE  293 

had  been  drawing  kerosene  and  was  holding  a  bottle  in 
one  hand  and  a  funnel  in  the  other. 

"Where  is  daddy?"  she  asked  thickly,  for  her  mouth 
was  full  of  silver  coins. 

"At  the  station,"  answered  the  workman.  "He 
said  he  would  come  home  when  it  was  darker." 

When  it  became  known  in  the  house  that  Anasim 
had  been  condemned  to  hard  labour  the  cook  in  the 
kitchen  suddenly  set  up  a  wail  as  if  she  were  at  a 
funeral,  thinking,  no  doubt,  that  decorum  demanded  it. 

"Oh,  why  have  you  forsaken  us,  Anasim  Tsibukin, 
light  of  our  eyes?" 

The  excited  dogs  began  howling.  Varvara  ran  to 
the  window,  trembling  with  distress,  and  called  to  the 
cook  at  the  top  of  her  voice: 

"Sto-op!  Stepanida,  sto-op!  Don't  make  us  any 
more  miserable,  for  God's  sake!" 

The  samovar  was  forgotten;  nothing  was  considered 
now.  Lipa  alone  could  in  nowise  understand  what  had 
happened  and  went  on  fondling  her  baby. 

No  questions  were  asked  the  old  man  when  he  came 
back  from  the  station.  He  greeted  every  one  and  then 
walked  through  all  the  rooms  without  saying  a  word. 
He  did  not  eat  any  supper. 

"There  was  no  one  to  do  anything,"  Varvara  began 
when  they  were  alone  together.  "  I  said  the  gentle- 
man should  have  been  asked  to  help,  but  you  wouldn't 
listen  then.  A  pardon  might  have  been — 

"I  did  everything,"  said  the  old  man  with  a  gesture 


294  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

of  impatience.  "When  Anasim  was  sentenced  I  went 
to  a  gentleman  who  had  defended  him,  but  he  said 
that  nothing  could  be  done;  it  was  too  late.  And 
Anasim  himself  said  the  same  thing:  it  was  too  late. 
But  I  did  engage  a  lawyer  as  soon  as  I  came  out  of  the 
court  and  paid  him  a  retaining  fee.  I  shall  wait  a  week, 
and  then  I  shall  go  back  to  town  again.  God's  will  be 
done!" 

The  old  man  again  walked  silently  through  all  the 
rooms,  and  when  he  came  back  to  Varvara  he  said: 

"I  must  be  ill.  There  is  something  wrong  in  my 
head — things  seem  confused  there — I  can't  think 
straight." 

He  shut  the  door,  so  that  Lipa  should  not  hear,  and 
went  on  in  a  low  voice: 

"I'm  not  right  about  money.  Do  you  remember 
that  Anasim  brought  me  a  lot  of  new  roubles  and  half- 
rouble  pieces  before  his  wedding?  I  put  away  one 
packet  of  them  at  the  time,  and  the  rest  I  mixed  with 
my  other  money.  I  used  to  have  an  uncle  named 
Dimitri,  who,  when  he  was  still  living — God  rest  his 
soul! — used  to  travel  all  over  the  country  buying 
merchandise,  from  Moscow  to  the  Crimea.  He  was 
married,  and  while  he  was  away  travelling  his  wife 
used  to  amuse  herself  with  other  men.  My  uncle  had 
six  children.  Well,  when  he  had  been  drinking  he  used 
to  laugh  and  say:  'I  can't  for  the  life  of  me  make  out 
which  of  these  are  my  children  and  which  belong  to 
the  others.'  He  was  a  light  character,  you  see.  Well, 


IN  THE  RAVINE  295 

and  so  it  is  with  me;  I  can't  for  the  life  of  me  tell  which 
of  my  money  is  real  and  which  is  false.  It  all  seems 
false  to  me." 

"God  bless  you!    What  a  notion!" 

"  If  I  buy  a  ticket  at  the  station  and  give  three  rou- 
bles for  it  I  think  the  coins  are  false.  I  am  frightened. 
I  must  be  ill." 

"We  are  all  in  the  hands  of  God.  Oh,  tut,  tut!" 
said  Varvara,  shaking  her  head.  "We  must  think 
about  this,  Gregory.  Some  misfortune  might  happen; 
you  are  not  a  young  man.  If  you  were  to  die  the 
others  might  do  some  harm  to  your  grandson.  Oh,  I 
am  afraid  for  Nikifor!  They  will  wrong  him!  In  a 
way  he  has  no  father,  and  his  mother  is  foolish  and 
young.  You  ought  to  secure  something  to  the  boy,  if 
it's  only  your  land,  Butekino,  for  example.  Yes,  Greg- 
ory, really!  Think  of  it!"  Varvara  entreated.  "He  is 
such  a  pretty  boy;  it's  a  pity!  Do  go  tomorrow  and 
make  a  will!  Why  wait?" 

"I  had  forgotten  my  grandson,"  said  Tsibukin.  "I 
must  say  good  evening  to  him.  So  you  say  he's  a 
pretty  boy?  Well,  I  hope  he'll  live  to  grow  up.  God 
grant  it!" 

He  opened  the  door  and  beckoned  Lipa  to  him  with 
his  forefinger.  She  came  toward  him  with  her  baby 
in  her  arms. 

"If  you  need  anything  you  must  ask  for  it,  little 
Lipa,"  he  said.  "Eat  all  you  can;  we  don't  begrudge 
you  anything,  so  long  as  you  keep  well."  He  made  the 


296  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

sign  of  the  cross  over  the  baby.  "Take  good  care  of 
my  little  grandson.  My  son  is  gone,  but  my  grandson 
is  left." 

The  tears  were  coursing  down  his  cheeks  now;  he 
sobbed  and  turned  away.  In  a  little  while  he  lay  down 
and  slept  heavily  after  his  seven  sleepless  nights. 


VII 

The  old  man  made  only  a  short  visit  to  the  city. 
Some  one  informed  Aksinia  that  he  had  been  to  the 
notary  to  make  a  will  and  had  left  Butekino  to  his 
grandson,  Nikifor.  She  was  told  this  one  morning 
when  the  old  man  and  Varvara  were  sitting  under  the 
birchtree  at  the  front  door-steps  drinking  tea.  She 
shut  the  door  of  the  store  that  led  into  the  street  and 
the  door  that  led  into  the  courtyard,  collected  all  her 
keys,  and  flung  them  down  at  the  feet  of  the  old  man. 

"I  won't  work  in  your  house  any  longer!"  she 
shouted  vehemently  and  suddenly  burst  into  tears. 
"It  seems  I  am  not  your  daughter-in-law,  but  a  ser- 
vant. Everybody  is  laughing  at  me:  they  say,  'Look 
at  that  servant  the  Tsibukins  have  found ! '  I  did  not 
hire  myself  out  to  you !  I  am  not  a  beggar  or  a  penni- 
less wench — I  have  a  mother  and  father." 

She  fixed  her  angry,  tear-filled  eyes  on  the  old  man 
without  troubling  to  wipe  them;  her  face  and  neck  were 
flushed  and  tense  as  if  she  had  been  yelling  with  all  her 
might. 


IN  THE  RAVINE  297 

"I  won't  be  a  servant  any  longer!"  she  continued. 
"I  am  run  off  my  feet!  When  it  comes  to  work,  then 
I  have  to  sit  day  in  and  day  out  in  the  store  and  sneak 
out  at  night  after  vodka,  but  when  it  comes  to  receiving 
land,  the  convict's  wife  gets  it  with  her  devil's  spawn! 
She  is  the  mistress  here  and  a  fine  lady,  and  I  am  her 
servant.  Give  the  prisoner's  wife  everything,  and  let 
her  choke  on  it!  I  am  going  home.  Find  another  fool 
for  yourselves,  you  damned  scoundrels!" 

The  old  man  had  never  in  his  life  scolded  or  punished 
his  children,  and  had  not  imagined  that  a  member  of 
his  family  could  speak  rudely  to  him  or  treat  him  dis- 
respectfully. He  was  terribly  frightened  now  and  ran 
into  the  house,  where  he  hid  behind  a  cupboard.  Var- 
vara  was  so  appalled  that  she  could  not  rise  from  her 
seat  and  only  kept  brandishing  both  arms  as  if  she 
were  defending  herself  from  a  swarm  of  bees. 

"Oh,  oh,  what  is  the  matter?"  she  murmured  in 
horror.  "What  is  she  shrieking  so  for?  Oh,  tut,  tut! 
People  will  hear  you!  Oh,  be  quiet,  be  quiet!" 

"You  have  given  Butekino  to  the  convict's  wife!" 
Aksinia  shouted  on.  "Now  give  her  everything;  I 
don't  want  a  thing  from  you !  Bad  luck  to  you !  You 
are  nothing  but  a  gang  of  thieves.  I've  had  enough  of 
it.  I've  done  with  you  all.  You  rob  all  who  come  near 
you,  old  and  young,  you  pickpockets!  Who  sells  vodka 
without  a  license?  Who  commits  forgery?  You  have 
stuffed  your  coffers  full  of  false  coins,  and  now  you  no 
longer  need  me!" 


298  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

By  this  time  a  crowd  had  gathered  around  the  open 
gates,  and  the  villagers  were  staring  into  the  courtyard. 

"Let  the  people  see!"  shrieked  Aksinia.  "I  will 
heap  shame  on  your  heads!  You  shall  burn  with  it! 
I  will  make  you  grovel  at  my  feet!  Hi!  Stephen!" 
she  called  to  the  deaf  boy.  "We  are  going  home  this 
minute  to  my  father  and  mother;  I  won't  live  with 
convicts!  Get  ready!" 

The  washing  was  hanging  out  on  a  line  that  was 
stretched  across  the  courtyard.  She  snatched  down  her 
blouses  and  skirts  and  flung  them  to  the  deaf  boy  and 
then  flew  about  the  courtyard  in  a  frenzy  among  the 
clothes,  tearing  everything  down,  throwing  everything 
that  was  not  hers  on  the  ground  and  trampling  on  it. 

"Oh,  the  Lord  have  mercy!  Take  her  away!" 
groaned  Varvara.  "Give  her  back  Butekino!  Give 
it  back  to  her  for  Christ's  sake!" 

"Ah-ha,  what  a  woman!"  exclaimed  the  neighbours 
at  the  gate.  "How  furious  she  is!  She's  a  terror!" 

Aksinia  ran  into  the  kitchen  where  the  clothes  were 
being  washed.  Lipa  was  working  there  alone,  the  cook 
had  gone  down  to  the  river  to  rinse  the  clothes.  Steam 
was  rising  from  the  wash-tub  and  from  the  boiler  near 
the  stove,  and  the  air  of  the  kitchen  was  stifling  and 
dense  with  vapour.  A  pile  of  soiled  clothes  lay  on  the 
floor,  and  near  them  on  a  bench  sprawled  Nikifor  play- 
ing with  his  rosy  feet,  laid  down  there  so  that  he 
could  not  hurt  himself  if  he  fell  off  the  bench.  Lipa 
was  picking  a  chemise  of  Aksinia's  out  of  the  pile  of 


IN  THE  RAVINE  299 

clothes  as  the  other  came  into  the  kitchen;  she  put 
it  into  the  tub  and  stretched  out  her  hand  for  the  big 
scoop  of  boiling  water  that  lay  on  the  table. 

"Give  it  to  me!"  shouted  Aksinia  looking  at  her 
with  hatred  and  dragging  her  chemise  out  of  the  tub. 
"You  have  no  business  to  touch  my  clothes!  You  are 
a  convict's  wife:  you  ought  to  .know  your  place  and 
who  you  are!" 

Lipa  looked  at  her  mildly  without  comprehension, 
but  all  at  once,  as  she  caught  the  glance  which  the 
woman  threw  at  her  baby,  she  suddenly  understood 
and  turned  pale  as  death. 

"You  have  taken  my  land,  take  this!" 

Saying  these  words,  Aksinia  seized  the  ladle  of  boil- 
ing water  and  dashed  it  over  Nikifor. 

At  this  a  shriek  went  up  the  like  of  which  had  never 
been  heard  in  Ukleyevo,  and  no  one  could  have  believed 
that  a  weak  little  creature  like  Lipa  could  have  uttered 
such  a  cry. 

Silence  suddenly  fell  over  the  courtyard.  Aksinia 
went  into  the  house  without  saying  a  word,  with  the 
same  naive  smile  on  her  face.  The  deaf  boy  was  stroll- 
ing about  the  courtyard  with  his  arms  full  of  clothes. 
He  silently  and  without  haste  proceeded  to  hang  them 
out  once  more.  And  until  the  cook  came  back  from 
the  river  no  one  dared  go  into  the  kitchen  to  see  what 
had  happened  there. 


300  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 


VIII 

Nikifor  was  taken  to  the  county  hospital  and  died 
there  that  evening.  Lipa  did  not  wait  for  any  one  to 
come  for  her  but  wrapped  the  little  body  in  a  blanket 
and  started  to  carry  it  home. 

The  hospital  was  new,  with  large  windows,  and  stood 
high  on  a  hill.  It  was  gleaming  now  in  the  rays  of  the 
setting  sun  and  seemed  to  be  ablaze  on  the  inside.  A 
little  village  lay  at  the  foot  of  the  hill.  Lipa  walked 
down  the  road  and  before  she  came  to  the  village  sat 
down  on  the  edge  of  a  pond.  A  woman  came  leading 
a  horse  to  the  water,  but  the  horse  refused  to  drink. 

"What  more  do  you  want?"  asked  the  woman  softly 
and  wonderingly.  "What  do  you  want?" 

A  boy  in  a  red  shirt  sat  at  the  water's  edge  washing 
his  father's  boots.  Not  another  soul  was  in  sight  either 
in  the  village  or  on  the  hill. 

"He  isn't  drinking,"  Lipa  said  to  herself,  watching 
the  horse. 

The  woman  and  the  boy  departed,  and  now  no  one 
was  to  be  seen.  The  sun  sank  to  rest  and  folded  him- 
self in  a  tissue  of  gold  and  purple,  and  long  crimson  and 
lilac  clouds  lay  stretched  across  the  sky,  guarding  his 
sleep.  A  bittern  was  booming  in  the  far  distance 
dully  and  lugubriously,  like  a  cow  in  a  shed.  The  cry 
of  that  mysterious  bird  resounded  every  spring,  but 
no  one  knew  what  sort  of  a  creature  it  was  nor  where  it 


IN  THE  RAVINE  301 

had  its  abode.  The  nightingales  were  pouring  forth 
their  songs  on  the  hilltop,  in  the  bushes  around  the 
pond,  beyond  the  village,  and  in  the  fields  on  either 
hand.  A  cuckoo  was  counting  and  counting  and  always 
losing  count  and  commencing  again.  The  frogs  in  the 
pond  were  splitting  their  throats  in  a  frantic  chorus, 
and  one  could  even  distinguish  the  words  they  were 
shouting:  "Ee  tee  takova!  Ee  tee  takova!"  What  a 
din  there  was!  Every  living  being  seemed  to  be  shout- 
ing and  singing  on  purpose  to  keep  any  creature  from 
sleeping  this  evening  of  spring,  so  that  all,  even  the 
angry  frogs,  might  enjoy  every  minute  of  it — after  all, 
one  can  live  but  one  life! 

A  silver  crescent  moon  was  gleaming,  and  stars  with- 
out number  were  shining  in  the  sky.  Lipa  did  not  re- 
member how  long  she  had  been  sitting  by  the  pond,  but 
when  she  arose  and  walked  on,  the  village  was  already 
asleep  and  no  lights  were  burning. 

She  was  probably  about  nine  miles  from  home,  but 
her  strength  was  exhausted,  and  she  had  no  idea  in 
which  direction  to  go.  The  moon  hung  now  on  her 
right  and  now  before  her,  and  the  same  cuckoo  was 
crying,  though  hoarsely  by  now:  "Oho!  Look  out, 
you're  off  the  road!"  Lipa  hurried  on,  and  the  ker- 
chief slipped  from  her  head.  She  looked  up  at  the  sky 
and  wondered  where  the  soul  of  her  boy  now  was. 
Was  he  walking  behind  her  or  was  he  floating  up  there 
overhead  near  the  stars,  already  forgetful  of  his  mother? 
Oh,  how  lonely  it  was  at  night  in  the  fields,  in  the 


302  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

midst  of  all  this  singing,  for  one  who  could  not  sing! 
How  lonely  among  these  incessant  shouts  of  gladness 
for  one  who  could  not  rejoice!  The  moon  looked 
down  from  heaven  and  was  lonely,  too;  it  did  not 
care  whether  the  season  were  winter  or  spring  or 
whether  people  were  dead  or  alive.  It  is  sad  to  be 
alone  when  the  heart  is  full  of  misery.  If  only  her 
mother  were  with  her,  thought  Lipa,  or  Bony,  or  the 
cook,  or  some  peasant! 

"Boo-oo!    Boo-oo!"  cried  the  bittern. 

Suddenly  a  man's  voice  became  clearly  audible,  say- 
ing: 

"Harness  the  horses,  Vavila!" 

A  camp-fire  burned  before  Lipa  on  the  side  of  the 
road.  The  flames  had  already  died  down,  and  only 
the  red  embers  were  still  glowing.  She  could  hear 
horses  munching.  Two  men  and  two  carts  were  visi- 
ble in  the  darkness;  one  cart  carried  a  barrel,  and  the 
other,  smaller  one  was  laden  with  sacks.  One  man 
was  leading  a  horse  to  be  harnessed,  the  other  was 
standing  by  the  fire  with  his  hands  behind  his  back. 
A  dog  growled  near  the  carts.  The  man  who  was  lead- 
ing the  horse  stopped  and  said: 

"I  think  some  one  is  coming  along  the  road." 

"Sha/ik,  be  still!"  the  other  man  called  to  the  dog, 
and  from  his  voice  it  could  be  heard  that  he  was  old. 
Lipa  stopped  and  cried: 

"Help,  in  God's  name!" 

The  old  man  approached  her  and  said  after  a  pause: 


IN  THE  RAVINE  303 

"Good  evening!" 

"Will  your  dog  bite?" 

"No,  come  on!     He  won't  touch  you." 

"I  have  been  to  the  hospital,"  said  Lipa  after  a 
silence.  "My  little  boy  died  there.  I  am  carrying 
him  home." 

This  must  have  been  unpleasant  for  the  old  man  to 
hear,  for  he  drew  back  and  said  hastily: 

"That  is  nothing,  my  dear.  It  is  God's  will.  You 
are  dawdling,  boy!"  he  cried,  turning  to  his  companion. 
"Be  quick!" 

"Your  yoke  isn't  here,"  cried  the  lad.  "I  can't  find 
it." 

"Your  wagon  is  on  the  right-hand  side,  Vavila." 

The  old  man  picked  up  a  brand  and  blew  on  it,  and  a 
light  glowed  on  his  eyes  and  nose.  When  the  yoke  had 
been  found  he  went  back  to  Lipa,  carrying  the  brand, 
and  looked  into  her  face.  His  glance  was  compassion- 
ate and  tender. 

"You  are  a  mother,"  he  said.  "A  mother  is  always 
sad  at  the  loss  of  her  child." 

He  sighed  as  he  said  this  and  shook  his  head. 
Vavila  threw  something  on  the  fire  and  stamped  it  out. 
The  night  suddenly  grew  very  black,  the  vision  van- 
ished, and  nothing  remained  but  the  fields,  the  s^y  with 
its  stars,  and  the  noisy  birds  keeping  each  other  awake. 
A  rail  began  calling  on  the  very  spot,  it  seemed,  where 
the  camp-fire  had  been  burning. 

But  before  a  minute  had  elapsed  the  old  man  and 


304  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

the  tall  Vavila  became  visible  once  more.  The  wagons 
creaked  as  they  hauled  out  into  the  road. 

"Are  you  holy  men?"  Lipa  inquired  of  the  old  man. 

"No,  we  are  peasants  from  Firsanoff." 

"My  heart  melted  when  you  looked  at  me  a  little 
while  ago.  And  that  is  a  quiet  lad.  So  I  thought  you 
were  holy  men." 

"Have  you  far  to  go?" 

"To  Ukleyevo." 

"Get  in!  We'll  take  you  as  far  as  Kuzmenok.  Your 
road  branches  off  to  the  right  there  and  ours  to  the 
left." 

Vavila  mounted  the  wagon  with  the  barrel,  and  the 
old  man  and  Lipa  got  into  the  other.  They  travelled 
at  a  foot-pace,  with  Vavila  ahead. 

"My  little  son  suffered  all  day,"  said  Lipa.  "He 
looked  at  me  so  with  his  little  eyes  and  could  not  utter 
a  sound.  He  wanted  to  say  something  and  couldn't. 
Holy  Mother  of  God!  I  fell  to  the  floor  with  grief. 
I  was  standing  by  the  bedside  and  fell  down.  Tell  me, 
daddy,  why  should  a  baby  suffer  before  he  dies?  When 
a  grown  person,  a  man  or  a  woman,  suffers  his  sins 
are  forgiven  him,  but  why  should  a  little  one  suffer 
that  has  no  sins?  Why?" 

"VOio  can  say?"  answered  the  old  man. 

They  travelled  on  for  half  an  hour  in  silence. 

"One  cannot  know  the  reason  for  everything,"  said 
the  old  man.  "A  bird  is  not  given  four  wings  but  two, 
because  two  are  all  that  he  needs  to  fly  with,  and  so 


IN  THE  RAVINE  305 

people  are  not  allowed  to  know  everything  but  only  a 
half  or  a  quarter.  Everybody  knows  as  much  as  he 
needs  to  know  in  order  to  live." 

"Daddy!  It  is  easier  for  me  to  walk!  My  heart 
beats  so!" 

"Never  mind!    Sit  still." 

The  old  man  yawned  and  made  the  sign  of  the  cross 
over  his  mouth. 

"Never  mind,"  he  repeated.  "Your  grief  is  only 
half  a  grief.  Life  is  long.  You  will  yet  have  good 
times  and  bad  times.  You  will  have  a  little  of  every- 
thing. Russia  is  a  mighty  mother!"  he  said,  looking 
around  him.  "And  I  have  travelled  over  all  Russia 
and  have  seen  everything.  You  can  believe  my  words, 
child,  you  will  have  good  times  yet  and  bad  times.  I 
have  been  to  Siberia  on  foot.  I  have  been  on  the  Amur 
River  and  in  the  Altai  Mountains;  I  emigrated  to 
Siberia  and  tilled  the  soil  there,  but  my  heart  was 
heavy  for  mother  Russia,  and  I  went  back  to  my  native 
village.  I  went  back  on  foot.  I  remember  I  was  cross- 
ing a  river  once  on  a  ferry-boat,  all  thin  and  ragged  and 
shivering,  gnawing  a  crust  of  bread,  and  a  gentleman 
who  was  on  the  same  boat — God  rest  his  soul  if  he  is 
dead! — looked  at  me  with  compassion  and  with  the 
tears  streaming  down  his  cheeks.  'Alas!'  h^  cried. 
'  Your  bread  is  black,  and  black  are  your  days. '  When 
I  got  back  I  had  neither  hut  nor  home.  I  had  had  a 
wife  before,  but  I  had  left  her  behind  me  in  Siberia; 
we  buried  her  there.  So  now  I  hire  myself  out  as  a  day- 


306  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

labourer.  And  what  of  it?  I  tell  you  I  have  had  good 
times  and  bad  times  since  then.  I  don't  want  to  die, 
child.  I  could  live  twenty  years  more,  so  that  means 
there  has  been  more  good  than  bad  in  my  life.  Rus- 
sia is  a  mighty  mother!"  he  said  and  once  more  looked 
from  side  to  side. 

"Daddy,"  asked  Lipa,  "when  a  man  dies,  how  many 
days  does  his  soul  stay  on  earth?" 

"Who  can  say?  Let  us  ask  Vavila.  He  has  been 
to  school,  and  they  teach  everything  now.  Vavila!" 
the  old  man  called. 

"Yes?" 

"Vavila,  when  a  man  dies,  how  many  days  does  his 
soul  stay  on  earth?" 

Vavila  first  stopped  his  horse  and  then  answered: 

"Nine  days.  When  my  Uncle  Kiril  died  his  soul 
went  on  living  in  our  hut  for  thirteen  days." 

"How  do  you  know  that?" 

"Because  we  heard  a  thumping  in  the  stove  for  thir- 
teen days." 

"Very  well.  Go  ahead!"  said  the  old  man.  He 
evidently  did  not  believe  any  of  this. 

The  carts  turned  into  the  highroad  near  Kuzmenok, 
and  Lipa  proceeded  on  foot.  Day  was  breaking.  The 
huts  and  the  church  of  Ukleyevo  were  hidden  in  mist 
as  'She  climbed  down  into  the  ravine.  The  air  was  chill, 
and  she  seemed  to  hear  the  same  cuckoo  calling. 

The  cattle  had  not  yet  been  driven  out  when  Lipa 
got  home.  Every  one  was  asleep.  She  sat  down  on 


IN  THE  RAVINE  307 

the  door-step  to  wait.  The  first  to  come  out  was  the 
old  man  and  he  saw  at  a  glance  what  had  happened, 
For  a  long  time  he  could  not  utter  a  sound  and  only 
stood  mumbling  with  his  lips. 

"Ah,  Lipa!"  he  cried  at  last.  "You  did  not  take 
care  of  my  grandson!" 

Varvara  was  waked.  She  wrung  her  hands  and 
burst  into  tears  and  at  once  began  to  care  for  the 
little  body. 

"He  was  a  pretty  boy,"  she  said.  "Oh,  tut,  tut! 
you  had  only  one  boy,  and  you  did  not  take  care  of 
him,  little  stupid!" 

A  requiem  mass  was  sung  for  the  baby  both  morning 
and  evening.  He  was  buried  next  day,  and  after  the 
funeral  the  guests  and  the  clergy  ate  a  great  deal,  as 
greedily  as  if  they  had  not  tasted  food  for  an  age. 
Lipa  waited  on  the  table,  and  the  old  man  raised  his 
fork  on  which  he  had  impaled  a  salt  mushroom  and 
said  to  her: 

"  Don't  grieve  for  the  baby.  The  kingdom  of  heaven 
is  for  such  as  he." 

Only  after  the  guests  had  departed  did  Lipa  fully 
realise  that  Nikif or  was  gone  for  ever,  and  as  she  real- 
ised it  she  burst  into  tears.  She  did  not  know  into 
which  room  to  go  to  cry,  for  since  the  boy's  death  she 
felt  that  there  was  no  place  for  her  in  this  houset  that 
she  was  superfluous  here  now;  and  the  others  felt  the 
same  thing. 

"Here,  what  are  you  bawling  for?"  suddenly  shouted 


308  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

Aksinia,  appearing  in  the  doorway;  she  was  wearing  a 
new  dress  for  the  funeral  and  had  powdered  her  face. 
"Be  still!" 

Lipa  tried  to  stop  but  could  not  and  sobbed  louder 
than  ever. 

"Do  you  hear  me?"  cried  Aksinia,  stamping  her 
foot  in  great  wrath.  "Whom  am  I  speaking  to?  Quit 
this  house  and  never  set  foot  here  again,  you  convict! 
Begone!" 

"Come,  come,  come!"  said  the  old  man  anxiously. 
"Aksinia,  calm  yourself,  my  daughter.  Of  course,  she 
is  crying,  her  baby  is  dead." 

"Of  course,  she  is  crying!"  mocked  Aksinia.  "Let 
her  spend  the  night  here,  but  after  to-morrow  let  her 
not  dare  to  show  her  face  here  again!  Of  course,  she  is 
crying!"  she  mocked  once  more  and  laughed  and  went 
into  the  store. 

Early  next  morning  Lipa  walked  back  to  Torguyevo 
to  her  mother. 

IX 

The  roof  and  doors  of  the  store  are  painted  now  and 
shine  like  new;  gay  geraniums  blossom  in  the  windows 
as  before,  and  the  happenings  of  three  years  ago  are 
almost*' forgotten  in  the  house  of  the  Tsibukins. 

Now,  as  before,  the  old  man  is  still  called  master, 
but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  business  has  all  passed  into 
Aksinia's  hands.  She  buys  and  sells,  and  nothing  can 


IN  THE  RAVINE  309 

be  done  without  her  sanction.  The  brick-yard  is 
working  well;  bricks  are  needed  for  the  railway,  so 
that  their  price  has  gone  up  to  twenty-four  roubles  a 
thousand.  The  women  and  children  haul  them  to  the 
station  and  load  them  into  the  cars,  and  for  this  they 
get  a  quarter  of  a  rouble  a  day. 

Aksinia  has  gone  into  partnership  with  the  Hrimins 
and  their  brick-yard  is  now  called  "Hrimin's  Sons  and 
Co."  A  tavern  has  been  opened  near  the  station  and 
the  expensive  accordion  is  played  there  now  instead 
of  at  the  factory.  Thither  the  postmaster,  who  has 
opened  a  business  of  some  sort  himself,  often  goes,  and 
thither  goes  also  the  station-master. 

Hrimin's  Sons  have  given  the  deaf  boy  a  gold  watch, 
and  this  he  pulls  out  of  his  pocket  from  time  to  time 
and  holds  to  his  ear. 

It  is  said  of  Aksinia  in  the  village  that  she  has  ac- 
quired great  power,  and  in  truth  one  is  conscious  of 
this  as  she  drives  to  the  brick-yard  every  morning  and 
gives  her  orders  there,  handsome  and  gay,  with  a  naive 
smile  on  her  lips.  Every  one  fears  her  at  home,  in  the 
village,  and  at  the  brick-yard.  When  she  goes  to  the 
post-office  the  postmaster  jumps  up  from  his  seat  and 
says: 

"Kindly  sit  down,  Madam  Aksinia!" 

A  certain  landowner,  a  dandy  in  a  coat  of  light  cloth 
and  high  patent-leather  boots,  who  was  selling  her  a 
horse  one  day,  was  so  enchanted  by  his  conversation 
with  her  that  he  came  down  in  his  price  to  her  figure. 


310  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

He  held  her  hand  for  a  long  time,  looked  into  her  gay, 
wily,  naive  eyes,  and  said: 

"I  would  do  anything  in  the  world  to  please  a  woman 
like  you.  Only  tell  me  when  we  can  meet  without 
being  interrupted." 

"Whenever  you  like." 

This  elderly  dandy  now  comes  every  day  to  drink 
beer  in  the  store,  horribly  bad  beer,  as  bitter  as  worm- 
wood, but  he  shudders  and  drinks  it  all  the  same. 

Old  Tsibukin  no  longer  has  a  share  in  the  business. 
He  does  not  keep  the  money  himself  because  he  cannot 
tell  true  coins  from  false,  but  he  says  nothing  of  this 
and  never  mentions  his  weakness  to  any  one.  He  has 
become  forgetful  of  late,  and  if  food  is  not  offered  him 
does  not  ask  for  it.  The  household  has  grown  used 
to  dining  without  him,  and  Varvara  often  remarks: 

"Our  old  man  went  to  bed  again  last  night  without 
eating  anything."  She  says  this  with  equanimity  be- 
cause she  is  used  to  it.  For  some  reason  he  always 
wears  his  fur  coat  both  winter  and  summer,  and  only 
stays  at  home  on  very  hot  days.  As  a  rule,  he  puts  on 
his  coat,  turns  up  his  collar,  wraps  himself  up,  and 
walks  about  the  village  and  up  the  road  to  the  station, 
or  else  he  sits  motionless  from  morning  till  night  on  a 
bench  at  the  church  door. 

The  passers-by  bow  to  him,  but  he  does  not  return 
their  salute  because  he  still  does  not  like  peasants.  If 
any  one  asks  him  a  question  he  answers  sensibly  and 
politely  but  shortly. 


IN  THE  RAVINE  311 

There  is  a  rumour  in  the  village  that  his  daughter- 
in-law  has  driven  him  out  of  the  house  and  won't  give 
him  anything  to  eat,  and  that  he  lives  entirely  on 
alms;  some  rejoice  at  this,  and  some  pity  him. 

Varvara  has  grown  still  stouter  and  fairer;  she  still 
does  her  little  deeds  of  charity  and  Aksinia  does  not  in- 
terfere with  her.  There  is  so  much  jam  now  that  they 
cannot  finish  it  all  before  the  new  berries  come  in; 
it  turns  to  sugar  and  Varvara  almost  weeps,  not  know- 
ing what  to  do  with  it. 

They  are  growing  forgetful  of  Anasim.  There  came 
a  letter  from  him  once,  written  in  verse  on  a  sheet  of 
paper  like  a  petition;  it  was  in  the  same  familiar, 
beautiful  handwriting;  evidently  his  friend  Samorodoff 
was  serving  his  sentence  with  him.  At  the  end  of  the 
verses  a  single  line  was  scrawled  in  a  rough,  almost 
illegible  hand : "  I  am  ill  here  all  the  time;  it  is  very  hard; 
help  me,  for  Christ's  sake." 

One  bright  autumn  evening  Tsibukin  was  sitting  at 
the  church  door  with  the  collar  of  his  fur  coat  turned 
up  so  that  all  that  could  be  seen  over  it  was  his  nose 
and  the  peak  of  his  cap.  On  the  other  end  of  the  long 
bench  sat  Elizaroff  the  carpenter,  and  beside  him  wa^ 
Jacob  the  watchman,  a  toothless  old  greybeard  of 
seventy.  Bony  and  the  watchman  were  gossiping  to- 
gether. 

"Children  should  provide  food  and  drink  for  the 
aged — honour  your  father  and  your  mother,"  Jacob 
was  saying  with  irritation.  "But  his  son's  wife  has 


312  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

driven  her  father-in-law  out  of  his  own  Jiouse.  The 
old  man  has  nothing  to  eat  or  drink — where  can  he  go 
for  it?  This  is  the  third  day  that  he  has  been  with- 
out food." 

"The  third  day!"  marvelled  Bony. 

"There  he  sits  and  never  says  a  word.  He  is  grow- 
ing weak.  Why  keep  silence?  She  ought  to  be  ar- 
rested!" 

"Who  has  been  arrested?"  asked  Bony,  not  hearing 
aright. 

"What's  that?" 

"The  woman  isn't  bad;  she's  a  hard  worker.  A 
business  like  theirs  cannot  be  run  without  that — with- 
out sin,  I  mean." 

"Out  of  his  own  house!"  Jacob  continued  irritably. 
"  She  first  gets  a  home,  and  then  chases  every  one  out 
of  it!  She's  a  terrible  woman,  I  declare!  A  pest!" 

Tsibukin  listened  without  stirring. 

"What  difference  does  it  make  whether  one  lives  in 
one'-s  own  house  or  in  somebody  else's,  as  long  as  it  is 
warm  and  the  women  don't  scold?"  chuckled  Bony. 
"I  used  to  grieve  terribly  for  my  Anastasia  in  my 
#oung  days.  She  was  a  gentle  woman.  She  used  to 
say  continually:  'Buy  a  horse,  husband,  buy  a  horse! 
Buy  a  horse,  husband!'  When  she  was  dying  she  was 
still  saying:  'Buy  yourself  a  racing  cart,  husband,  so 
that  you  won't  have  to  walk!'  And  I  never  bought 
her  anything  but  gingerbread." 

"Her  husband  is  deaf  and  stupid,"  Jacob  went  on 


IN  THE  RAVINE  313 

without  heeding  Bony,  "the  same  as  a  goose.  How 
can  he  understand  what's  going  on?  If  you  hit  a  goose 
on  the  head  it  still  won't  understand." 

Bony  rose  to  go  back  to  his  home  at  the  factory  and 
Jacob  rose  with  him.  They  strolled  away  together, 
still  talking.  When  they  had  gone  about  fifty  paces 
Tsibukin  rose  and  crawled  after  them  with  uncertain 
footsteps,  as  if  he  were  walking  on  slippery  ice. 

The  village  was  already  sunk  in  the  shades  of  eve- 
ning, and  the  sunlight  fell  only  on  the  summit  of  the 
cliff  and  shone  on  the  upper  end  of  the  road  that  wound 
snakelike  down  the  steep  incline.  Some  old  women  and 
children  were  returning  from  the  woods  carrying  bas- 
kets of  mushrooms.  A  crowd  of  women  and  young 
girls  were  returning  from  the  station,  where  they  had 
been  loading  the  cars  with  bricks,  and  their  cheeks  and 
noses  were  powdered  with  red  brick-dust.  They  were 
singing.  At  the  head  of  the  procession  walked  Lipa 
singing  in  a  high  voice,  warbling  her  song  as  she  looked 
up  to  heaven  as  if  she  were  exulting  that  the  day  was 
done  and  the  time  for  rest  had  come.  Her  mother, 
Praskovia,  walked  in  the  throng  carrying  a  little  pack- 
age in  her  hand,  breathing  heavily  as  she  always  did. 

"Good  evening,  Elizaroff!"  cried  Lipa  as  she  caught 
sight  of  Bony.  "Good  evening,  daddy  dear!" 

"Good  evening,  little  Lipa!"  rejoiced  Bony.  "Little 
women,  little  girls,  won't  you  fall  in  love  with  a  rich 
old  carpenter?  Ho!  ho!  Oh,  my  children,  my  chil- 
dren!" (Bony  sobbed.)  "My  dear  little  hatchets!" 


314  STORIES  OF  RUSSIAN  LIFE 

Bony  and  Jacob  continued  on  their  way  and  the 
girls  could  hear  them  gossiping  together.  After  pass- 
ing them  the  crowd  met  Tsibukin,  and  suddenly  all 
were  hushed.  Lipa  and  Praskovia  slackened  their 
pace,  and  when  the  old  man  came  up  beside  them  Lipa 
bowed  low  and  said: 

"Good  evening,  sir!" 

The  mother  bowed  also.  The  old  man  stopped  and 
looked  at  them  in  silence;  his  lips  trembled,  his  eyes 
filled  with  tears.  Lipa  took  a  slice  of  pie  with  porridge 
from  the  package  her  mother  held  and  gave  it  to  the 
old  man.  He  took  it  and  began  to  eat. 

The  sun  had  gone  down;  its  light  had  faded  from  the 
road;  the  evening  was  dark  and  chill.  Lipa  and  Pras- 
kovia continued  on  their  way  and  kept  crossing  them- 
selves for  a  long  time  after  the  encounter. 


A     000  024  846 


I 


